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THE ATHENyCUM PRESS SERIES 

G. L. KITTREDGE AND C. T. WINCHESTER 
GENERAL EDITORS 



Btbena^um press Series. 



This series is intended to furnish a 



Hbrary of the best Enghsh Hterature 



from Chaucer to the present time in a 



form adapted to the needs of both the 



student and the general reader. The 



works selected are carefully edited, with 



biographical and critical introductions, 



full explanatory notes, and other neces- 



sary apparatus. 



Htbena^um press Series 



/ 

SELECTIONS FROM DeQUINCEY 



EDITED 

WITH AN INTRODUCTION AND NOTES 

BY 

MILTON HAIGHT TURK, PH.D. 

Professor of the English Language and Literature in 
HoBART College 



w 



Boston, U.S.A., and London 
GINN & COMPANY, PUBLISHERS 

Cbe 9ltl)enaeum ^xttid 

1902 



T^''^* 



THE Lli«ARV HF 

•INGRESS, 
Two OomM RsotivE* 

APR. G 1902 

CLASt «^ XXe No. 

-1, L^ v^ 
COPY A 



Entered at Stationers' Hall 



Copyright, 1902 
By MILTON HAIGHT TURK 



ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 



TO A VERY KIND READER 

TO WHOSE INDULGENCE I OWE FAR MORE 

THAN THE CERTAINTY OF AN AUDIENCE 

THIS VOLUME IS INSCRIBED 

BY HER SON 



4 



PREFACE 

This volume contains — besides the Confessions^ several 
of the Suspiria, and other popular pieces — the most impor- 
tant parts of De Quincey's Autobiographic Sketches and 
some of his most interesting Literary Reminiscefices. It 
is hoped that the selections will serve to illustrate pretty 
fully De Quincey's varied literary activity, while at the 
same time they throw light upon his life and character, 
A portion of the Introduction is devoted to the study of 
his personality. The text adopted is, except in the case 
of the Confessions, the latest to which De Quincey gave 
his approval. For the use of the original Cofifessions in 
place of the greatly enlarged version of 1856, there appears 
to be a better excuse than that of brevity. As will be 
pointed out in the Introduction, it is at least a question 
whether the earlier form had not the preference of the 
author himself. 

The editor takes pleasure in acknowledging in this place 
some obligations incurred during the preparation of this 
volume and not specifically mentioned elsewhere. My 
debt to the general editors is ve/y considerable. I have 
to thank for assistance on the Noes Professor F. P. Nash 
of Hobart College, and Professor J. C. Kirtland, Jr., of The 
Phillips Academy, Exeter, N.H. Some valuable additions 



Vlil PREFACE 

to the Bibliography I owe to the 

Chew, Esq., of New York, and Professor 

Librarian of Hobart College. Finally, Professor Edward 

Dowden of Dublin has come to my aid, in one or two 

important matters, with a ready kindness that no personal 

claim of mine could have increased. 

Hobart College, Geneva, N.Y., 
November 2, 1901. 



courtesy of Beverly* 
issor C. D. Vail, the 






CONTENTS 



PREFACE 



PAGB 

vii 



INTRODUCTION 

I. General Remarks ...... xi 

II. DeQuincey's Early Life ..... xvi 

III. DeQuincey as Author xxvii 

IV. DeQuincey's Character xxxvi 

V. Classification of De Quincey's Works. His Essays xlii 

VI. DeQuincey's Imaginative Prose . . . . li 

VII. Some Comments on DeQuincey's Style . . Ixiii 

VIII. A Brief Bibliography Ixviii 



SELECTIONS 

'^ The Affliction of Childhood .... 

Introduction to the World of Strife 

A Meeting with Lamb ...... 

A Meeting with Coleridge .... 

Recollections of Wordsworth .... 

Confessions of an English Opium-Eater . 

From the '* Suspiria de Profundis "... 

The English Mail-Coach 

yON Murder Considered as one of the Fine Arts 
Second Paper ...... 

Joan of Arc ........ 

On the Knocking at the Gate in "Macbeth" 

NOTES . . 



I 

21 

93 
io6 
124 

151 
265 

277 

340 
356 
395 

401 



INTRODUCTION 
I 

In De Quincey's Letters to a Young Man whose Ediicatmi 
has been Neglected occwxs the following significant statement : 
" I have passed more of my life in absolute and unmiti- 
gated solitude, voluntarily, and for intellectual purposes, 
than any person of my age whom I have ever either met 
with, heard of, or read of."^ Thus De Quincey at the age 
of thirty-seven. Twenty years later Professor Wilson, of 
whom De Quincey speaks as his "one intimate male friend," 
gives this account of their relation : "I was very intimate 
with him, and believe I am now more intimate with him 
than any other person, and yet I hardly ever see him. . . . 
I have not seen him above four times in six years (if I 
remember rightly), and yet his family ask tidings of him 
from me."^ The last years of De Quincey's life brought 
him a little circle of admiring acquaintances who, attracted 
by the fame of his writings, were attached to him still more 
closely by the brilliancy of his conversation. But, while 
these incursions of kindly curiosity must have interrupted 
his periods of solitude, they did not, it appears, diminish 
the real isolation of De Quincey's existence. 

Having thus lived apart from men, after his death it was 
his fate to be kept apart from them and to be judged 

1 De Quincey, Works, Masson's Ed., Vol. X, p. 14; Riverside Ed., 
Vol. IX, p. 7. 

2 Mason, Personal Traits of British Authors : Scott, Hogg, Camp- 
bell, Chalmers, Wilson, De Quincey, Jeffrey, p. 248. (Lord Cranbrook in 
National Revieiv, April, 1884.) 



xii INTR OB UC TION 

according to other than ordinary human standards. In 
truth, for a score of years after he died the De Quincey of 1 
tradition was hardly a man at all. To the readers of his 1 
most popular book it seemed that if he did not drop from 
the clouds, it was only that he had chosen cloudland as 
his permanent abode ; and this impression was deepened 
by many anecdotes, eagerly caught up by the public press, 
concerning the oddities of the Opium-Eater. Thus it came 
about that so expert a critic as Mr. Leslie Stephen wrote 
in 187 1, and thereafter repeatedly republished, the follow- 
ing generalization on De Quincey's life : " For seventy- 
three years De Quincey had been carrying on an operation 
which for want of a better term we must describe as living, 
but which would be more fitly described by some mode of 
speech indicating an existence on the borders of dreamland 
and reality." The growth of this flourishing De Quincey 
myth was arrested by the appearance in 1877 of Page's^ 
(Dr. Japp's) Life; and it may be said to have ceased finally 
since the publication of such works as Findlay's Recollec- 
tions^ Woodhouse's Coiiversatio?is, and Japp's Memorials. 
The growth of interest in De Quincey and the academic 
study of his style have also conduced to a better knowl- 
edge and a more judicious estimate of his personality. 
At this day we can record the final capitulation of the 
myth-makers in the withdrawal from the last edition of 
Hours in a Library of the sentence just quoted. 

The men that have wrought this change, inspired by 
a deep admiration for their subject, have gathered with 
the assistance of his family and friends the materials 
for a fairly adequate account of De Quincey's life; the 
more comprehensive writings have not failed to discuss 

1 H. A. Page is the pseudonym used in this case by Dr. Alexander 
H. Japp, whose later publications concerning De Quincey bear his own 
name. 



INTRO D UC TION XU I 

his personality. In this last respect, however, the reader 
cannot be blind to an inconclusiveness unusual in the 
treatment of a man of letters so prominent and one by 
whom and of whom so much has been said. We know 
very well what he did ; who has told us what he was ? If 
this latter is the more difficult question of the two, it is 
also no doubt the more important. In De Quincey's case 
the difficulty of the investigation can hardly be magnified. 
The inquiring student finds him entrenched in solitude and 
provisioned with silence. As the biographer of John Wil- 
son says concerning this author of several volumes of auto- 
biography : " He indeed knew how to analyze the human 
heart, through all its deep windings, but in return he offered 
no key of access to his own." De Quincey's writings, 
however, are no more baffling than was his conversation. 
Every new volume of personal recollections adds another 
proof that in this respect his friends and his family were 
not much more fortunate than the wider public. 

I have attributed the prevalence of hazy notions of 
De Quincey's life to his solitude ; to his silence we may 
in part ascribe a perhaps more serious perplexity concern- 
ing his personality. Dr. Japp, his chief biographer, has\ 
frankly acknowledged what he terms the "critical puzzle of i 
De Quincey's character." His words may serve us now as 
a point of departure : " that in combination with dreamy 
abstraction, helplessness and over-sensibility amounting to 
disease" there should exist '< great powers of observation, 
sympathy, humour, self-possession, dignity and courtesy of 
manner."^ The first part of this comparison conveys 
quite adequately the problem which engages the biographer's 
attention. The dreamy abstraction, helplessness, and over- 
sensibility argue a mental deficiency which the great powers 
of observation and analysis deny. On the one side, as 

1 Page, Life, Vol. II, p. 184. 



xiv INTR OD UC TION 



less-lj 



Dr. Japp shows, Ue Quincey seems marked by powerless 
ness towards the facts of life ; on the other he seems equally 
distinguished by ability to grasp and control them. 

So much for the question of intellect involved. It is at 
the words "self-possession, dignity and courtesy of manner" 
that we pause. Not, however, to deny that the Opium- 
Eater displayed all these characteristics. We have heard 
and have been touched by the wonderful tales of his gen- 
tleness and his consideration for the feelings of others. 
Servants were ladies to him, and ladies goddesses. He 
burnt his poor diseased stomach once with a boiling hot 
potato rather than keep — not his lady-love — his land- 
lady waiting at his door. Here was a knight, we say, in a 
greatcoat and one stocking ! ^ But surely there is another 
side of De Quincey which Dr. Japp — too often his apolo- 
gist — has not adequately presented to us in his memoir ; 
surely there are actions recorded of him in which he dis- 
plays neither self-possession, dignity, nor courtesy of man- 
ner. What of his criticisms of Mrs. Wordsworth's brains 
and of her husband's legs ? - What of the remarks upon 
Mrs. Coleridge, Bath milliners, and marital unhappiness, for 
which Southey prescribed a cudgel ? ^ Worse than all these, 
by reason of their lack of even the meanest excuse, are the 
animadversions — conversational though they be — upon 
John Wilson which are recounted for us by Mr. Findlay.* 

1 So De Quincey appeared on one occasion. For similar stories, cf. 
Mrs. Baird Smith in Page, Life, Vol. I, p. 361 ; Burton, Bookhunter, 
p. 33; Hogg, De Quincey and his Friends, p. 129. See also Hogg, 
p. 172. 

2 See Works, Masson's Ed., Vol. Ill, p. 202 ; Riverside Ed., Vol. Ill, 
p. 612 ; also below, p. 139. 

8 Works, Masson's Ed., Vol. II, p. 157; Riverside Ed., Vol. Ill, 
p. 176; and Carlyle, Reminisce7tces (ed. Froude), p. 518. 

* Findlay, Personal Recollections, p. 47 ; also in Hogg, De Quincey 
and his Friends, p. 151. 



INTRODUCTION XV 

Wilson, we remember, was the ''one intimate male friend " ; 
he had been the embarrassed but patient recipient of many 
a draft signed "T. Q."; he was the author of the judgment 
of the Opium-Eater in the Nodes: "He is a man of a 
million." But De Quincey tells Findlay of Wilson's "love 
to be surrounded by parasites " ; he ridicules " the sickly, 
false sentiment of his works and their evidently insincere 
and vulgar, overwrought religionism"; Wilson's "tales, at 
least, were a jest among the Wordsworths " ; and much 
more. 

Professor Masson, a just though kindly critic, admits 
freely the " very considerable fund of prejudice, temper, 
opinionativeness, animosity, pugnacity, on which De Quin- 
cey could draw when he liked." ^ This, or much of it, 
might be said, no doubt, of many another man. What sur- 
prises us most in De Quincey is the sort of person or 
occasion which calls forth these qualities. If Wordsworth 
or Coleridge had lost all claims to his consideration, as 
has been suggested, through a failure to prize highly the 
acquaintance of Mrs. de Quincey, for what did poor 
Wilson suffer ? Unwilling as we may be to follow Miss 
Martineau in making " malignant gossip " a feature of 
De Quincey's conversation, we are forced to confess that 
his behavior on these occasions seems as excessive and as 
causeless as the knightly performances referred to above. 
Two such extremes of conduct in the same man form a 
moral contradiction not less marked, it would seem, than 
the " critical puzzle " that engages Dr. Japp's attention. 

Both these questions — the intellectual and the moral — 
must be settled before we can know De Quincey as nowa- 
days we insist upon knowing our men of letters ; both 
questions, too, have something of that wider human inter- 
est which attaches to all that concerns the Opium-Eater. 
1 Masson, De Quincey (English Men of Letters), p. 129. 



XVI INTRODUCTION 

And, in spite of his habitual isolation and persistent silence, 
his life, when reviewed as a whole, must still yield up 
something of his real personality to inquiry so near in 
time as ours. With this end in view I shall, in relating 
the life of De Quincey, attempt to trace at the same time 
the growth and development of his intellect and character. 



II 

"Our family has been in England since the Conquest," I 
said the young De Quincey to George III. Of Norman — 
ultimately of Norse — origin, the De Quinceys had greatly 
improved their position after their settlement in England, 
until a certain De Quincey, Earl of Winchester, was be- 
headed ; whereupon the noble gens " exploded and scattered 
its ruins all over the central provinces of England."^ The 
De Quinceys, or Quinceys,"^ as they were now to be called 
for many centuries, took up commerce, and throve both in 
England and in America.^ Our author's father, Thomas 
Quincey, was very successful in trade \vith America and 
the West Indies. He was a man of sterling worth and 
withal of some taste for letters. His library was very 
extensive, " comprising the whole general literature of 
England and Scotland for the preceding generation"; and 
he was even an author: A Short Tour in the Midland 
Counties of England^ which was published in 1775, most 
of it having first appeared in the Gentleman'' s Magazi?ie^ 

1 De Quincey, Posthumous Works (ed. Japp), Vol. I, p. 201. 

2 " Not De Quincey himself, but his mother it was that assumed or 
resumed the ' De,' and then some time after, when she became deeply 
evangelical in her religious views, was inclined to drop it as a worldly 
vanity." — Japp, De Quincey Memorials, Vol. I, p. 52. It is amusing to 
observe that her most severe letters are sure to be signed " E. Quincey " 
or " E. Q." Cf. Memorials, Vol. I, pp. 79, 85, 87, 88, 93, with ibid., p. 97. 

3 Josiah Quincy, of Boston, belonged to this family. 



INTRODUCTION xvii 

May to September, 1774, was a thoroughly intelligent piece 
of work. Unhappily, Thomas Quincey was a consumptive ; 
he spent a great deal of time in tropical climates, and the 
younger Thomas did not know him by sight until he came 
home in 1793 to die. An influence that might have been 
potent for good in the wayward life of the son was thus 
represented by a faint and fading memory ; of De Quincey's 
mother, who was Elizabeth Penson, we shall hear more. 

Thomas, the Opium-Eater, was the fifth child ^ and was 
born in Manchester on the 15th of August, 1785. He 
was almost immediately taken to "The Farm," a small sub- 
urban dwelling, and in 1791 or 1792 to Gree?iha}\^ di larger 
country place. Here he lived until his eleventh year a life 
of rustic solitude, disturbed only by the experiences of 
which he has told in his autobiographic writings." In 
1796 his mother removed to Bath and placed him in the 
grammar school there. 

De Quincey was of opinion that he inherited a consump- 
tive tendency, which his opium-eating kept in check. Be 
that as it may, he was certainly from the beginning a small 
and rather weak child ; apart from the siege of ague that 
made him an invalid from his second to his fourth year, 
lis recollections of early childhood all point to one of 
those frail existences that arouse in vigorous humanity 
more pity than real sympathy. Though De Quincey may 
have heightened somewhat the contrast between himself 
and his brother, "the son of eternal racket," the "passion 
for being despised " to which he confesses is a trait that 
in a boy indicates a refusal on the part of body and mind 

1 See note 1 16. 

2 Both places are now within the city of Manchester, and the latter 
has given its name, in the form Greenhcys, to one of the districts of 
that city. 

3 See below, pp. 1-92, and note 3 4. 



XVlil INTRODUCTION 

to grapple with the world in the struggle which youth islj 
generally but too glad to enter. In very early years, then, 
De Quincey sank into himself. His autobiography con- 
tains pathetic testimony to his refuge in those days. "God 
speaks to children in dreams," runs, in part, the well-known 
passage, " and by the oracles that lurk in darkness, but in 
solitude . . . God holds with little children communion 
undisturbed."^ Nourished in this way, the childish sensi- 
bility and imaginativeness that are wont to be excessive in 
frail bodies became in De Quincey extreme.- 

Herein lie, no doubt, the beginnings of mental infirmity 
and disease, and here the efforts of discerning parents 
afford, perhaps, the one hope of relief. De Quincey says 
that his life was saved by his "introduction to the world of 
strife " through his brother. But with his mother lay, in 
these days, his fate. Mrs. de Quincey was a woman of 
considerable intellectual power.'^ She was also beyond a 
doubt deeply and unselfishly devoted to her fatherless 
children; in later years she reduced herself almost to 
poverty to meet their loose expenditures. But Mrs. 
de Quincey was decidedly an austere woman ; we are told 
that a servant who was advised to appeal on some point 
from the housekeeper to the mistress exclaimed in horror, 
" Speak to mistress ! Would I speak to a ghost ? " Mrs. 
de Quincey was moreover a friend of Hannah More and 
an ardent believer in the tenets of the ultra-evangelical 
Clapham sect. She took De Quincey out of Bath School, 
he affirms, because he was too much praised, and in his 
earlier days, at least, she seems to have been by no means 
free from the abominable religionist notion that human 

1 See below, pp. 18-19, and note 18 31. 

2 See the second selection in this volume, especially pp. 64 et seq. 

•■^ See, for example, the interesting letter in Japp's Memorials, Vol. II, 
PP- 91-95- 



INTRODUCTION xix 

affections deeply enjoyed must lead astray from the path 
of duty. A love of formality seems to have been another 
weakness of this good lady. De Quincey tells us with some 
humor of the daily regulation according to which the 
brothers and sisters were carried before their mother for 
morning parade in her dressing-room ; " when we were pro- 
nounced to be in proper trim," he continues, "we were 
dismissed, but with two ceremonies that were to us myste- 
rious and allegorical, — first, that our hair and faces were 
sprinkled with lavender-water and milk of roses ; secondly, 
that we received a kiss on the forehead." 

This bearing Mrs. de Quincey consistently maintained ; 
a few years later we find her corresponding with her son 
about his general welfare in a tone of logical controversy 
that is really amazing.^ No one can doubt the sincerity 
of the earnest protestations of devotion with which she 
closes these letters ; but she seems to have been utterly 
unable to apply affection, so to speak, to the practical end 
of removing differences. Her watchword for all men is 
Duty ; the duty of children is to love God and obey their 
parents : these principles she finds laid down clearly in 
Holy Writ, especially in the Old Testament, to which her 
sect continually appealed. Disregard of these principles 
on the part of children, she knows, incurs divine wrath ; 
failure of parents to insist upon them must therefore be 
nothing less than a crime. The result of all this is a 
system of child-rearing as inflexible as a machine. All 
children are thrown into this moral hopper ; if they can get 
through, they are ground out good boys and girls ; if not, 
they are merely ground to pieces. 

Now De Quincey, as we have seen, was by physical 
weakness, as well as by intellectual superiority, an unusual 

1 These highly interesting letters are given in Japp's Memorials, 
Vol. I, pp. 70-85. 



XX INTR on UC TION 

child ; he was even from the beginning, by reason of his 
tendency to self-absorption, in some respects abnormal. 
The result of his mother's policy was therefore certain to 
be unfortunate ; we should predict with confidence a fur- 
ther mental and moral twist as the outcome of it. Those 
springs of natural affection that may be said to water the 
roots of a child's growing moral ideas were in great meas- 
ure dried up. On the other hand, an almost unparalleled 
precocity in intellectual pursuits was developed ; in those 
which remove the student farthest from his immediate 
surroundings, and which on that account are least enjoyed 
by most boys, De Quincey excelled at an absurdly early 
age. "That boy," said his master at Bath School, "that 
boy could harangue an Athenian mob better than you or I 
could address an English one " ; he might have added, 
''and better than he could address an English one, too." 

But our frail and precocious schoolboy was soon to be 
transferred to a sterner discipline ; Mrs. de Quincey's system 
of training was to end in a very commonplace revolt. To 
return to his days at Bath School, In 1799 an accidental 
blow on the head kept the young scholar at home ill for a 
time. Mrs. de Quincey read him such books as Milner's 
Church History and Johnson's Ramb/e?', and, as he grew 
stronger, put him under tutors. On his complete recovery, 
however, she transferred him from Bath School, which he 
liked, to Winkfield School in Wiltshire, in which he found 
nothing to commend but "the religious character of the 
master." After finishing the scholastic year there, he joined 
a Bath School friend, young Lord Westport, at Eton for a 
visit to the latter's home in Ireland. After seeing the last 
of the Irish Parliament, and having made a strong impres- 
sion on his friend's father. Lord Altamont, one of the 
prominent Irish peers, our young scholar made his way to 
Laxton in Northamptonshire to visit a friend of the 



t 



INTR on UC TION xxi 

l)e Quinceys, Lady Carbery, and incidentally to teach her 
to read her New Testament in Greek. De Quincey was 
now, at the age of fifteen, ready for Oxford, and he begged 
to be allowed to go there. His duty was otherwise inter- 
preted for him, and that he might secure ultimately a 
scholarship at Brasenose, he was sent to Manchester Gram- 
mar School to mark time intellectually and be "nosed by 
cotton-bags " (so writes this scion of the prosperous Man- 
chester merchant) for three years. There followed nine- 
teen months of acquiescence tempered by argument. Lady 
Carbery relieved the tedium of his surroundings for a 
little while, and, having now progressed greatly in her 
Bible studies, repaid his early instruction by teaching him 
Hebrew ; he formed some friendships with thinking men in 
Manchester and Liverpool ; but there was little or nothing 
for him to learn in school, and to increase the irksomeness 
of his position, the hours were very long. In a final appeal 
to his mother he bursts forth thus, and there is a touch of 
the older and greater De Quincey in his affluence of phrase : 

" I ask whether a person can be happy, or even simply 
easy, who is in a situation which deprives him of health, of 
society y of amusement, of liberty, of congeniality of pursuits, 
and which, to complete the precious picture, admits of no 
variety. I think you will hardly say he can, and yet this 
description was taken from my own case." 

But the guardians, his mother included, were firm ; he 
must either stay where he was, or choose a profession at 
once. So De Quincey, like many other young rogues and 
heroes, ran away from school. 

His first plan had been to reach Wordsworth, whose 
Lyrical Ballads (1798) had solaced him in fits of melan- 
choly and had awakened in him a deep reverence for the 
neglected poet. His timidity preventing this, he made his 
way to Chester, where his mother then lived, in the hope of 



INTR OD UC TION 



I 



seeing a sister ; was apprehended by the older members of 
the family; and through the intercession of his uncle, Colonel 
Penson, received the promise of a guinea a week to carry 
out his later project of a solitary tramp through Wales. 
From July to November, 1802, De Quincey then led a way- 
farer's life.^ He soon lost his guinea, however, by ceasing 
to keep his family informed of his whereabouts, and sub- 
sisted for a time with great difficulty. Still apparently fear- 
ing pursuit, with a little borrowed money he broke away 
entirely from his home by exchanging the solitude of 
Wales for the greater wilderness of London.^ Failing there 
to raise money on his expected patrimony, he for some 
time deliberately clung to a life of degradation and starva- 
tion rather than return to his lawful governors. This fact, 
in giving us De Quincey's opinion of the early conduct of 
his affairs, offers us also an instructive view of the state of 
mind to which that policy had brought him. 

Discovered by chance by his friends, De Quincey was 
brought home, — by April 22, 1803, he has been for some 
time with an old friend of the family, Mrs. Best, in Liver- 
pool, — and after much consultation he was permitted to go 
to Oxford. As only ;i^ioo a year was allowed him for 
expenses (the income from his own patrimony was ^150), 
he entered Worcester, one of the less expensive colleges. 
Our reports of his doings at the University, though both 
meagre and conflicting, leave on the whole no doubt that 
he was already a deeply marked man. The best opportu- 
nities for association with men of equal age and similar 
intellectual attainments failed to bring him back to the 

1 For all this period see below, pp. 1 65-1 71, and, in the notes to these 
pages, extracts from the revised Confessions. 

2 Cf. below, p. 66, where De Quincey recommends to the fugitive 
the "frantic publicities of London " in preference to the " quiet privacies 
of the country." 



1 



INTR OD UC no AT xxiii 

world. De Quincey speaks of himself in an autobiograph- 
ical paper as having "sought solitude at that early age in 
morbid excess." "For the first two years," he says again, 
" I compute that I did not utter one hundred words." ^ 
" He came to be looked upon as a strange being who asso- 
ciated with no one," records Woodhouse. He made one 
important acquaintance at this time, however, — one potent 
friend and relentless foe, — opium. Out of this chance meet- 
ing^ sprang, as everybody knows, De Quincey's first and 
greatest literary success, and, to no slight extent, the popu- 
lar notion of his character ; to it also he owed those periods 
of utter incapacity and misery that remained in his memory 
as the plague-spots of his life. Yet in the discussion of 
De Quincey's personality it would seem that opium has 
played too large a part. He was twenty-eight years old when 
he first really succumbed to the drug ; he had lived for more 
than a year a solitary and a stricken man at Oxford before 
he knew the p/iarmakoji nepeTithes at all. What De Quincey 
was to be was already determined, and opium entered his life, 
except for certain not extended periods, only to strengthen 
habits already well established. Even the faculty of mag- 
nificent dreaming was his, as he insists, long before. 

De Quincey took no degree. He went through part of 
the examination, but having been disappointed in the 
first place at not being allowed to answer in Greek,^ and 

1 Cf. The Spectator, No. i. "I had not been long at the University 
before I distinguished myself by a most profound silence ; for, during 
the space of eight years, excepting in the public exercises of the college, 
I scarce uttered the quantity of an hundred words." 

- How it happened De Quincey tells below, pp. 198-200. See also 
pp. 158, 168 ; as to the appalling disease of the stomach, see note 158 l. 

3 See Woodhouse's Conversations (Gamett, Confessions of an English 
Opimn-Eater, p. 226, or Hogg, De Quincey and his Friends^ p. 97) for 
this story related by De Quincey to Taylor ; for another version, see 
Masson, De Quincey, p. 39. 



XXIV INTRODUCTION 

generally displeased at the methods employed, after one 
day's experience he vanished. Notwithstanding, he had 
made good use of his time at Oxford in several ways : he 
had studied Hebrew and German with his tutors and had 
fairly ransacked both Greek and Latin literature; more than 
that, and better in his opinion, he had greatly extended 
his acquaintance with the best writers in his own tongue. 
And now also his connection begins with the men who 
make literature. Unable to summon up the courage to 
visit Wordsworth, in 1803 he wrote to him, and in time 
received from him several letters of great dignity and very 
high moral tone. In 1804, through the kindness of a 
*' literary friend," he met Lamb in London, and in 1807 he 
found Coleridge at Bridgwater after much seeking. Later 
in that year an opportunity was afforded him to conduct 
Mrs. Coleridge and her two children to Southey at Kes- 
wick ; they stopped at Grasmere, and at the door of Dove 
Cottage he at last had the happiness of taking Words- 
worth's hand. Three days later he made the acquaintance 
of Southey. 

De Quincey remained on the books of his College until 
18 10, and he includes 1808 in the period of his residence 
at Oxford ; but, although the time when he appeared for his 
degree is unknown, it w^ould seem that his active connection 
with the University ends with this visit to the poets. His 
meeting with them seems to have conduced to their benefit 
as well as to that of their admirer. Coleridge received in 
November, 1807, through Cottle, the Bristol bookseller, 
;^3oo (it is said to have been 15 per cent of De Quincey's 
remaining funds) from a "young man of fortune who 
admired his talents." In the next year De Quincey was 
much in London ; apparently he was already entered as a 
"student and member of the Honourable Society of the 
Middle Temple," and was now supposed to be " eating " his 



INTRODUCTION XX V 

terms for the bar; really he saw more of Lamb and Cole- 
ridge and extended his acquaintance among men of letters. 
From November, 1808, till February, 1809, he was with the 
Wordsworths at Grasmere. Returning to London, he made 
himself very useful to Wordsworth by seeing his Coiivention 
of Cintra pamphlet through the press and adding a post- 
script quite as good as the original. In the meantime 
Dorothy Wordsworth was fitting up for a new occupant 
Dove Cottage, which her brother's family had now out- 
grown, and in November, 1809, De Quincey was able to 
return to the Lakes as a permanent resident. 

De Quincey settled at Grasmere at this time, partly in 
search of retirement, partly to attach himself to the Words- 
worths. As might be expected of him, he succeeded in 
the former far better than in the latter object. He has 
ascribed the estrangement that followed to Wordsworth's 
character, — which certainly was not pliant, — to Mrs. 
Wordsworth's intellectual deficiencies, to the communica- 
tiveness of the servant that Dorothy Wordsworth had hired 
for him ; others have found the difficulty, and the animus 
of the articles twenty years later, in De Quincey's mar- 
riage, which took place in 1816.^ Margaret Simpson, a 

1 The following extremely enlightening remarks formed the close of 
a letter from De Quincey's mother, dated Sept. 9, 181 6 (when the mar- 
riage had already taken place) : 

" I have wavered often while writing this note, and at last resolve to say a 
word of the report which we now suppose had no truth in it. It seemed to come 
from high authority that you were about to marry, and nothing short of an 
oracular Voice could have made us listen to the tale, considering your want of 
means to meet the demands of a family. I am, however, so much entitled, and 
do really feel so affectionate an interest in your happiness, that I cannot help 
begging you to let me know your designs, and also to consider well before you 
trust the mere impulse of feeling, if, as I have just now heard, the sober judg- 
ment of your Friends cannot approve the step. I can abate much of what the 
world demands in marriage, but I know there are congruities which are indis- 
pensable to yoti, which you may overlook in the delusion of fancy, and be forced 



XX vi INTR OD UC TION 



■ 



De Quinceyan vision in literature, was in life the daughter 
of a well-to-do dalesman ; she was no doubt in social rank 
the inferior of Mrs. Wordsworth (who was also a native of 
Westmoreland), and Mrs. Wordsworth did not see fit to 
overlook the difference between them. This is much, 
no doubt ; add to this, however, what we know of Words- 
worth's strenuous ways ; superadd that De Quincey had 
by this time gone through those first terrible battles royal 
with opium described in the Confessmis ; and we may agree 
with him that his separation from the Wordsworths was 
from the beginning sure to take place. ^ Opium still held 
its power over our author, and the recovery, before his 
marriage, from his terrible lapse of 1813 was followed, soon 
after that event, by the second fall in 181 7, and that by yet 
another in 1823. In his respites from the drug he read 
German literature and metaphysics and political economy. 
His marriage worked, in one way, an important change in 
De Quincey's life, — his patrimony was soon quite exhausted. 
Necessity addressed the husband and father in no uncer- 
tain terms ; and, after several appeals to his mother and 
uncle, De Quincey became an editor. The Westmoreland 
Gazette had been started at Kendal in the Tory interest. 
De Quincey gravely set about to transform this dalesman's 
sheet into a national journal of philosophy, more particu- 
larly into an organ of modern transcendental metaphysics. 
He assured his readers that his friends could float the 
Gazette^ backed by his knowledge of German philosophy 

to see every moment of your life after to be wanting to your comfort, when you 
come to yourself. I am, my dear Thomas, your sincerely affectionate Mother, 
E. Quincey." 

The identity of the "oracular Voice" can hardly be mistaken; per- 
haps we have here the true explanation of De Quincey's estrangement 
from Wordsworth. 

1 See De Quincey's account of the matter, Works, Masson's Ed., 
Vol. Ill, p. 197 ; Riverside Ed., Vol. Ill, p. 607. 



INTR OD UC TTON xx vii 

and literature, into every section and division of the three 
great Universities. '^ I so managed it as to preserve my 
independence," said the Opium-Eater to Woodhouse : it is 
a pity that no one has recorded a colloquy of two West- 
moreland farmers on these plans of the new editor. Next 
to metaphysics, murder trials seem to have been the staple 
of this journal in the days of De Quincey.-* The whole 
episode might deserve to be a national jest, were it not so 
pathetic a testimony to the hopeless failure of our author 
in all practical affairs. 

Ill 

In 182 1, this journalistic employment having been aban- 
doned, De Quincey went to London. " Certain pecuniary 
embarrassments," he writes in his far-away fashion, "had 
rendered it necessary that I should extricate myself by 
literary toils." Introduced by Lamb and Talfourd to 
Taylor and Hessey, the proprietors of the Lo7idon Maga- 
zine^ he offered them some translations of German authors, 
who he thought should be better known to the English 
public. The shrewder publishers, however, saw a far greater 
" attraction " in De Quincey's own experiences ; so it came 
to pass that in a little room in York Street, Covent Garden, 
De Quincey penned the Confessions of an Efiglish Opium- 
Eater. With the readers of the Magazine, to whom it came 
in 182 1, the new classic eclipsed in interest the Essays 
of Elia, which were now appearing, and it was promptly 
published in book form. Curiosity soon discovered the 
shrinking author, and his circle of acquaintance grew rap- 
idly : Charles Knight has good stories to tell of him ; Tom 
Hood, co-editor of the London Magazine, found the Opium- 
Eater " at home, quite at home in a German Ocean of 

1 See note 340 2. 



XX viii INTR OD UC TION 

literature, in a storm, flooding all the fioor, the table and 
the chairs — billows of books," and "listened by the hour, 
whilst the philosopher, standing with his eyes fixed on one 
side of the room, seemed to be less speaking than reading 
from 'a handwriting on the wall.' " Richard Woodhouse, 
barrister of the Temple and the friend of Keats and Hunt, 
made his Notes of Cofii'ersations with Thomas de Quincey ^ at 
this time ; and the following account of the Opium-Eater's 
appearance and learning, set down by Woodhouse in 182 1, 
seems to have been composed with the greatest care : 

" I had formed to myself the idea of a tall, thin, pale, 
gentlemanly-looking, courtier-like man ; but I met a short, 
sallow-looking person, of a very peculiar cast of counte- 
nance, and apparently much an invalid. His demeanour 
was very gentle, modest and unassuming ; and his conver- 
sation fully came up to the idea I had formed of the writer 
of those articles [the Confessio7is']. . . . The Opium-Eater 
appears to have read a great deal, and to have thought 
much more. I was astonished at the depth and reality^ if I 
may so call it, of his knowledge. He seems to have passed 
nothing that occurred in the course of his study unre- 
flected on or unremembered. His conversation appeared 
like the elaboration of a mine of results ; and if at any 
time a general observation of his became matter of ques- 
tion or ulterior disquisition it was found that he had ready 
his reasons at a moment's notice; so that it was clear that 
his opinions were the fruits of his own reflections on what 
had come before him, and had not been taken up from 
others. Indeed, this last clearly appeared, since upon most 
of the topics that arose he was able to give a very satis- 
factory account, not merely of what books had been writ- 
ten upon those subjects, but of what opinions had been 

1 Published in Garnett's edition of the Confessions and in Hogg's 
De Quincey and his Friends. 



IN TROD L/C no AT xxix 

entertained upon them, together with his own judgments of 
those opinions, his acquiescence in them, or qualifications 
of them. Upon almost every subject that was introduced 
he had not only that general information which is easily 
picked up in literary society or from books, but that minute 
and accurate acquaintance with the details that can be 
acquired only from personal investigation of a subject and 
reflection upon it at the same time. Taylor led him into 
political economy, into the Greek and Latin accents, into 
antiquities, Roman roads, old castles, the origin and analogy 
of languages ; upon all these he was informed to consider- 
able minuteness. The same with regard to Shakespeare's 
sonnets, Spenser's minor poems, and the great writers and 
characters of Elizabeth's age and those of Cromwell's time. 
His judgments of books, of writers, of politics, were par- 
ticularly satisfactory and sound. He is a slight Danish 
scholar, a moderate Italian, a good Frenchman, exact as to 
pronunciation, and it seemed to me an excellent German 
scholar."! 

In the London Magazine the Confessions was followed by 
De Quincey's Richter with Analects, and in 1823-24 by the 
Letters to a Young Man whose Education has been Neglected, 
Herder, Knocking at the Gate in "■ Macbeth,^^ Rosier ucians and 
Free-Masons, German Tales, etc. In 1824 his connection 
with the London ceased, apparently, and after that year he 
was reckoned by Knight as on the staff of his Quarterly 
Magazine, though he contributed to it only two translations 
from the German. In the meantime reputation and friends 
had not apparently bettered the Opium-Eater's financial 
condition. His mother is in despair about him : in Feb- 
ruary, 1822, she "sees not at the bottom of his calamities 
any better hope than that which has ever cheated her 
unfortunate children"; in January, 1825, she formally 

1 Garnett, pp. 192-196; Hogg, pp. 72-74- 



XXX INTR OD UC TION 

divides her reduced income, allotting to Thomas de Quincey 
;^ioo, or one-sixth of the whole. 

De Quincey was soon, however, to exchange London and 
the Lakes — to which he apparently returned for several 
months in 1826 or 1827 — for a literary centre more active 
than either. Shortly after he settled in Grasmere he had 
been introduced by Wordsworth to their common neighbor 
John Wilson of EUeray. Wilson had been a famous scholar 
and great athlete at Oxford ; probably De Quincey was the 
only man of Wilson's time that did not know him. Now, 
at all events, they became well acquainted, and through 
many a long tramp among the hills De Quincey bravely 
trotted by his big friend's side. But Wilson lost his money 
and was obliged to go to Edinburgh, where in 18 13 h 
took examinations for the bar. In 1815 De Quincey viSj 
ited him there, and made the acquaintance of Lockhar 
Gillies, the Hamiltons, and others of the literary coterie o] 
the "Modern Athens." Soon after this, Blackwood's Edin 
burgh Magazine began its brilliant career as the great Tory 
opponent of the Edinburgh Review. While the proprietor 
was really the only editor, Wilson was certainly, though 
well seconded by Lockhart, the chief contributor, and pos- 
sessed considerable editorial discretion.^ Naturally Wilson 
sought very early to secure for '* Maga," as he delighted 
affectionately to term it, the services of the Opium- Eater. 
In March, 1820, Wilson wrote with many protestations of 
love to tell De Quincey of the impossibility of accepting 

1 Lockhart's description of Wilson in these days, in Peter'' s Letters 
to his Kinsfolk, Letter XII, is perhaps the best pen-picture we have of 
De Quincey's intimate friend : " In complexion, he is the best specimen 
I have ever seen of the genuine or ideal Goth. His hair is of the true 
Sicambrian yellow ; his eyes are of the lightest, and at the same time of 
the clearest blue, and the blood glows in his cheek with as firm a fer- 
vour as it did, according to the description of Jornandes, in those of the 
Bella gaudentesypraelio ridentes Teutones.'" 






INTR OD UCTION xxxi 

any more of the latter's drafts. Several years before 
De Quincey had lent his friend ;^2oo, which was paid ; 
now Wilson was obliged to sell his books to meet the 
bills which the Opium-Eater was drawing upon him. In 
the same letter he continues thus: "Unless something has 
occurred to make it impossible for you to send y*" con- 
tribution as you so solemnly promised when we parted, 
no doubt you W^ have done so. But I can never again 
mention the subject to Mr. Blackwood, who delayed the 
printing of the work several days on my assurance of a 
packet coming from you. . . . Your assistance is becoming 
every day more desirable and I have only to add that 
payment at the rate of £\o^ los. a sheet shall be monthly 
transmitted for your communications. . . . Whatever and 
whenever you send, it shall be inserted, and nothing can 
ever come wrong." In August of the same year he writes : 
"In your letter of the 26^ you proposed to send in a day 
or two your review of Malthus [this appeared in Xh^' Lon- 
don Magazine in 1823]. It is now the 5^ of August, and 
I am beginning to fear that something has occurred, to stop 
your composition. Ebojiy [i.e., Mr. Blackwood], who is 
the child of Hope and Fear, and who has shown a face of 
smiles for some days, begins to droop excessively ; and if 
the article does not come soon, no doubt he will commit 
suicide, which will be some considerable relief to me and 
many others of his well-wishers." And, further on: "I 
tried to convince Blackwood that you never had e?igaged to 
write for the Magazine [the year before De Quincey had 
counted this ten guineas a month as part of his income], 
and his face was worth ten pounds — for it was pale as a 
sheet. — I told him, however, that now you 7vere engaged, 
so that if the articles don't come now, he will become a 
sceptic even in religion, and end in total disbelief in Earth, 
Heaven and Hell." In February, 182 1, Wilson continues 



xxxii INTRODUCTION 

in a tone of quiet despair : " With respect to Blackwood^ s 
Magazine, I do not think I can press that subject upon 
you any more, for, if you c^ write for it, surely you 
would; . . . ;^i2o, ^130, or even ^150 per annum could 
be made by you in this way," etc. In 1825, during which 
year " Maga " got nothing at all from De Quincey, Wilson 
is "looking out every day for your [De Quincey's] commu- 
nications, which are much needed. . . . Remember that 
everything you think good, on whatever subject, original 
or translated, will answer our purpose." It would appear 
that De Quincey's need was very great at this time. Fox 
Ghyll, a cottage he had leased when Dove Cottage became 
too small, had been sold ; his wife and children were with 
his father-in-law ; he himself was in London, hiding from 
process for debt. On the other hand, in a letter to Wilson 
in February, 1825, he pleads that opium has left his liver 
"subject to affections which are tremendous for the weight 
of wretchedness attached to them." "To fence with these 
with the one hand," he continues, "and with the other to 
maintain the war with the wretched business of hack-author, 
with all its horrible degradations, is more than I am able 
to bear. At this moment I have not a place to hide my 
head in. Something I meditate — I know not what — 
^ Itaqiie e conspectu 07Jinium abiif.^ With a good publisher 
and leisure to premeditate what I write, I might yet lib- 
erate myself : after which, having paid everybody, I woulc 
slink into some dark corner — educate my children — anc 
show my face in the world no more." 

Finally Wilson's repeated assurances brought to Black 
wood De Quincey's Lessing, which appeared in 1826-27 
This was followed by the Last Days of Immanuel Kani 
and Murder Co?isidercd as one of the Fine Arts (first paper 
in 1827, and the Toilette of a Hebrew Lady and Rhetoric ir 
1828. His connections in London having now entirely 



INTRODUCTION xxxiii 

ceased, De Quincey removed to Edinburgh and settled 
there for good ; by 1830 he had gathered his family again 
about him. From this time on we hear less of De Quincey's 
financial distresses, though he was obliged once to seek 
sanctuary within the precincts of Holyrood, where his wife 
loyally joined him. His literary production during this 
long period was great in amount, and, as there was a ready 
and good market for anything he had to offer, his income 
must have been by no means despicable. Within five years 
after his arrival in Edinburgh he had given the short-lived 
Edinburgh Literary Gazette his first sketch of Professor Wil- 
son (1829) and had gratified "Ebony" with such articles 
as Richard Bentley^ Dr. Parr, The Ccesars, and Charlemagne, 
while at the same time (in 1832) his remarkable mediaeval 
romance, Klosterheim, appeared as an independent work. 
In 1834 a fruitful connection with 7 ait's Edinburgh Maga- 
zine, a Whig rival to Blackwood, began, and in this way 
appeared from time to time during the next six or seven 
years the Autobiographic Sketches and Literary Peminisce7ices. 
In 1837-38 he published in the Encyclopcedia Britannica 
his articles on Goethe, Pope, and Shakespeare, while Black- 
wood SQCwrtd the Revolt of the Tartars. In 1840-44 The 
Essenes, Style, Llomer and the LLomeridw, and Cicero appeared 
in that magazine, while at the same time (1844) Messrs. 
Blackwood published separately De Quincey's Logic of 
Political Economy. In 1845-50 Coleridge and Opiimi-Eating, 
the Suspiria de I^rofundis, and The English Mail-Coach 
(originally assigned to the series of Suspiria) were brought 
out by Blackwood, while lait gave to the world the JVotes 
on Literary Portraits, foan of Arc, The Spanish Military Nun, 
Com'ersation, L^rotestantism, etc. In 1847 some work was 
done by De Quincey on the North British Daily Mail in Glas- 
gow ; in 1849 articles on Golds?nith, The I'oetry of I\)pe, and 
Lamb appeared in the North British Review. After 1850 



XXXI V INTRODUCTION 

De Quincey contributed chiefly to James Hogg's Edinburgh 
Weekly Instructor and its monthly successor, Titan : Lan- 
guage, Sir William Hamilton, and other pieces came out in 
this way. His connection with Hogg was in one way the 
most important of De Quincey's alliances with publishers, 
for to this intrepid Scotchman we owe the collective 
edition of the Opium-Eater's works, edited by himself, 
the first volume of which came out in Edinburgh in 1853. 
De Quincey, not knowing how far this edition might 
extend, prudently named it Selections Grave a?id Gay. 
These last years were one long struggle to provide copy 
for these volumes, with the result that they are almost all 
utterly heterogeneous as to contents. The fourteenth vol- 
ume of this work was nearly ready for the press when 
De Quincey died. 

We must not suppose that this "business of hack-author " 
took up all De Quincey's time during these thirty years ; 
some diversions he enjoyed of his own peculiar kind. He 
had, as has been said, many acquaintances in these Edin 
burgh days, and not a few friends. Carlyle — not ye 
famous — wrote from Craigenputtoch in December, 1828 
" Come and see us, for we often long after you. . . . Would 
you come hither and be king over us ; the?i indeed we hac 
made a fair beginning, and the ' Bog School ' might snap iti 
fingers at the ' Lake School ' itself, and hope to be one da) 
recognised of all men." Professor Wilson he could see as 
often as he wished; and our store of anecdotes of De Quincey 
in this period testifies to occasional meetings with many 
more recent acquaintances. His publisher, Mr. Hogg, sa-w 
a good deal of him in the last years of his life, and 
younger man, Mr. J. R. Findlay, was often with him. Tc 
the latter we owe our most trustworthy description of th 
Opium-Eater's appearance as an old man : " He was a ver] 
little man (about 5 feet 3 or 4 inches) ; his countenanc( 



IN TROD UC TION xxx V 

the most remarkable for its intellectual attractiveness that 
I have ever seen. His features, though not regular, were 
aristocratically fine, and an air of delicate breeding per- 
vaded the face. His forehead was unusually high, square, 
and compact. At first sight his face appeared boyishly 
fresh and smooth, with a sort of hectic glow upon it that 
contrasted strangely with the evident appearances of age 
in the grizzled hair and dim-looking eyes. The flush or 
bloom on the cheeks was, I have no doubt, an effect of his 
constant use of opium ; and the apparent smoothness of 
the face disappeared upon examination." ^ But De Quin- 
cey's habit of executing mysterious disappearances from 
time to time would have interfered with the growth of 
friendship had the Opium-Eater been prepared to enter 
into really close relations with any man. It is clear, how- 
ever, despite the courtesy with which he received his guests, 
that on the whole he preferred to be alone, and generally 
had his wish. So the Carlyle invitation came to nothing, 
and it is evident that neither Mr. Hogg nor Mr. Findlay 
was in any sense intimate with the celebrated author. 
After Mrs. de Quincey's death in 183.7, while his family 
still remained in Edinburgh, he found it desirable to take 
separate lodgings in Lothian Street in the Old Town. 
When, in 1840, his elder daughters removed the rest of his 
"amily to Lasswade, a charming suburb of Edinburgh, he 
A^as still a very irregular resident of their pretty cottage, 
[n 1841-43 he spent most of his time in Glasgow, — at first 
IS a guest of Professor Nichol, the astronomer, or Professor 
Lushington ; afterwards in lodgings in Renfield Street, 
[n 1843 and 1844 came the fourth — and perhaps the most 
:errible^ — ^of his great excesses in the use of opium. His 
Jufferings during his heroic efforts to reduce the doses of 

1 Findlay, Recollections, pp. 2-3 ; reprinted in Hogg, De Quincey 
'.nd his Friends, p. 125. 



xxxvi INTRODUCTION 

the drug were awful. " Eternally the words sounded in my 
ears: 'Suffered and was buried.'" This, however, was the 
end of the opium curse. The disease of the stomach we 
now hear no more of ; and, although De Quincey continued 
to drink laudanum to the end of his days, the great craving 
against which he had had continually to struggle seems 
now to have worn itself out. Relieved also of financial 
worries, the Opium-Eater was thus able to enjoy, after his 
own fashion, a serene old age. He made another visit to 
Glasgow in 1847, reestablished himself in his lodgings in 
Renfield Street (which he had retained as a storehouse 
for his Glasgow accumulations of books and papers), and, in 
the intervals of composition, enjoyed himself in observing 
the people in the Market. Soon after his return to Edin- 
burgh he settled himself again in his rooms at 42 Lothian 
Street, which he now retained — and frequently inhabited 
— until his death ; after Selections Grave and Gay began to 
appear he was permanently established in these quarters. 
Here, on the 8th of December, 1859, he died. A simple 
tablet marks the position of his rooms. 

IV 

De Quincey's later history carries out the tendencies s< 
marked in his early years. Physical weakness, unhealth] 
sensibility, injudicious rearing, revolt, wanderings, opium- 
eating, ill-assorted marriage, had been the continuous 
chain of misfortune that not only determined the tenor of 
his life, but gave to his mind and character their peculiar 
bent. His chief resource first and always was solitude, — a 
solitude that was marked, however, by varying employ- 
ment. Most of the time it was, as De Quincey says, "for 
intellectual purposes " ; and he is found immersed in those 
studies and speculations which have furnished the material 



II 



INTR OD UC TION xxx vii 

for the bulk of his literary work. But there were other 
hours — few but long remembered — of which the strange 
results were the dreams and visions that distinguish the 
smaller but far more famous portion of his authorship. 
It is the common quality of both kinds of work that at 
no time do we find him in a wholesome, helpful relation to 
ordinary human life. 

In his essay on Rhetoric De Quincey censures Junius 
for " lingering forever in the dust and rubbish of individu- 
ality, amongst the tangible realities of things and persons." 
Whatever may have been the result of this tendency in 
Junius, the want of it is the essential defect in De Quin- 
cey's work. To start away from the present fact that must 
be faced as a fact, and fix attention upon the distant set 
of facts that may be made the subject of speculation, was 
the ingrained habit of De Quincey's mind. We think we 
see here the not unnatural result of persistent solitude and 
musing. At all events De Quincey's power over a fact 
is in inverse ratio to its nearness. He is the farsighted 
man in literature, who cannot focus his mental vision upon 
anything near at hand. The Essenes are more interesting 
than the Methodists ; the Caesars for him displace Napo- 
leon ; Toryism and Whiggism he discusses with respect to 
the theories upon which the parties historically rest, and 
with specific disregard of their actions. As might be 
expected, De Quincey's own experiences, at one time 
so remarkable and so instructive, when absorbed into 
his mind, reappear chiefly in dream and vision. Ann 
of Oxford Street ^ does not set before this young philoso- 
pher the most difficult problem in the range of sociology ; 
she only becomes his dream-companion in many an 
uneasy slumber. Thus it is with him always : equal to 
the most delicate analysis in matters of purely speculative 
1 See Confessions, below, pp. 176-195. 



xxxviii INTR OD UC TION 

interest, in things of nearer personal concernment he i 
utterly helpless. 

The man who cannot grasp and make his own the fact 
of daily life is, it need hardly be said, a man who canno 
learn from experience. Intellectually this may be a serious 
shortcoming ; it carries with it, however, a much greater 
moral defect. Character grows only as it is nourished 
through the doing and enduring of daily life. De Quincey 
was not properly a weak man, but he had the moral 
standing of a child. Efforts, like those of Miss Mitford 
and Dr. Japp, to exonerate De Quincey where the Words- 
worths or any others are concerned, are foredoomed to 
failure ; had they any hope of success, — had they indeed 
been in place, — they would have been made long ago by 
the culprit himself. But it is useless to talk of our Opium- 
Eater as of one having full moral responsibility. Mr. Rae- 
Brown has spoken of De Quincey's extreme gentleness of 
manner as "almost that of a retiring yet high-bred child " ; 
his discourtesy also, of which the attack on his Lake 
friends was an example, was likewise that of a presump- 
tuous boy. This presumption is mingled with not a little 
vanity, — the same childish self-conceit that speaks in the 
"I was right, as I always am," "I think I may claim to 
have studied this subject more than any other modern 
Englishman," and other familiar formulas. To the very 
end De Quincey cherished a youth's dreams of intellectual 
conquests of the world. When over seventy years of age 
he discussed with the elder Mr. Hogg a project for " the 
greatest work that had ever been done," — the "History 
of England " in twelve volumes ; and he left not only 
notes endorsed "My History of England," but also others 
marked " My book on the Infinite " and " For my book 
on the Relations of Christianity to Man." One further 
profession of his sublime faith in himself is striking enough 



INTRODUCTION xxxix 

to bear citation here : " I hoped and have every year 
hoped with better grounds," he writes, "that (if I should 
be blessed with life sufficient) I should accomplish a great 
revolution in the intellectual condition of the world. That 
I should both as one cause and effect of that revolution 
place education upon a new footing throughout all civilized 
nations was but one part of the revolution. It was also 
but a part of this revolution ; it was also but a part (though 
it may seem singly more than enough for a whole) to be 
the first founder of true philosophy. It was no more than 
a part that I hoped to be the re-estabUsher in England 
with accessions of Mathematics." 

A man — nay, "every inch a king" — in the past and 
the speculative, De Quincey was a child in the moral, the 
practical, the present. Growing rapidly, abnormally, on the 
one side, he was quite "cheated of this fair proportion" 
on the other. It would seem that we may, without being 
too fanciful, trace this childish element in De Quincey's 
character through some features of his make-up as a writer. 
De Quincey, who thought that the young poet should be 
willing to pluck out his right eye if by such a sacrifice 
he could "attain to greater purity, precision, compass, 
or idiomatic energy of diction," ^ shows at times a child's 
love of slang. "A dangerous customer, but not a cus- 
tomer to be sneezed at," "a gone coon," "to call the 
whole kit of them monsters," are fair examples. This 
fondness for slang is closely connected with a flippant 
treatment of serious subjects where no humorous effect is 
apparently sought, as for instance of Socrates, — "the old 
gentleman himself, the founder of the concern." There is 
a touch of the self-confidence of youth about these expres- 
sions ; they seem to be notes of that effervescence of 

1 Essay on Keats, in which Lucretius and Horace figure as " two 
old files." 



xl INTRODUCTION 

childish vanity which adult humanity generally endeavors 
to conceal. 

The struggle of child with man in De Quincey confronts 
us again in the difficulties which beset the question of his 
accuracy as a writer. We should not ordinarily expect an 
opium-eater and dreamer to be always quite sure of his 
ground, but our opium-eater is also a philosopher, likewise 
a rhetorician, and he prides himself upon a scrupulous pre- 
cision in all his statements, — a quality of style which, as 
we have seen above, he strongly recommended to others. 
That De Quincey is apt, and so far exact, in his use of words 
no one will wish to deny ; but his most devoted apologist 
must stand silent before the accumulating instances of 
his quiet neglect of facts. Whether the Malay of the Co?i- 
fessious^ in whom Mr. Saintsbury has taken so great an 
interest, ever called upon the Opium-Eater or not, what is 
to be said of the long passages in the Revolt of the Tartars 
for which no original exists, and the culminating stroke by 
which the author erected two lofty columns in China with 
a magnificent De Quinceyan inscription, — all imaginary .? ^ 
De Quincey's accuracy throughout is the choice of a phrase 
to correspond to a mental conception, which in turn, under 
the constant modification of a vivid imagination, may or 
may not coincide with actual fact. De Quincey seems to 
have retained that love of making a good story, and that 
sublime unconsciousness of the nature of the little step 
over the bounds of truth, which we find so frequently in 
children. At all events, a thoroughly childish negligence 
of fact contends with the philosopher's precision of state- 
ment again and again in his work. 

1 " Slightly altered in one or two phrases," says De Quincey's note. 
Cf. in De Quincey's Flight of a Tartar Tribe (Riverside Literature 
Series), notes to pp. 31, 33, 41, 55, 78. For some remarks upon De 
Quincey's statements about Coleridge, see notes to pp. 110-117, below. 



INTR ODUC TION xli 

Indeed, with his immaturity and lack of grasp on practical 
considerations we may connect the most serious of all 
limitations of De Quincey's style, — his diffuseness. He is 
without doubt the least concentrated of all who lay claim 
to a high place as masters of the language ; he is diffuse 
and wandering to an extent that discloses a complete 
ignorance of the existence of such a fault. After all, the 
saving of a reader's time and brain power are purely prac- 
tical considerations for which it would be idle to expect to 
engage De Quincey's interest and effort. Occasionally, as 
in the revised Confessmis, De Quincey expands purposely 
to fill a certain space, but ordinarily he merely gives way 
to his natural tendency to exhaust the manifold minor 
divisions and side issues of his subjects, as a sociable dog 
follows his master, with excursions into all the neighboring 
fields. De Quincey's Story of a Libel,^ to cite some examples 
outside this volume, treats of Romish casuistry, of Words- 
worth's imagery, of Paley's philosophy, of duelling, of the 
unpleasantness of being libelled, of courts of honor, and of 
several other matters. The account of London^ is another 
good specimen of digression within digression. 

But these comparisons need not always result to our 
author's disadvantage. The tendency of De Quincey's 
mind to hunt strange trails has no doubt secured us many a 
valuable paper from his pen, and the range and variety of 
his writings may well recompense us for the discomfort we 
suffer from the discursiveness of many single pieces. In 
another way too his weakness is closely allied to strength. 
If he lost much by failing to take his place on the solid 
ground of adult manhood, his residence in the cloudland 

1 Cf. Works, Masson's Ed., Vol. Ill, pp. i6o <?/ seq.\ Riverside Ed., 
Vol. Ill, pp. 66i et seq. 

2 Cf. Works, Masson's Ed., Vol. II, pp. 9 et seq.; Riverside Ed., 
Vol. II, pp. 499 et seq. 



xlii INTRODUCTION 



ne— 1 



of children was not without its consolations. He alone 
at least among adult Englishmen — was able to preserve in' 
advanced years that glorious faculty of dreaming which is 
the peculiar privilege of childhood. 



In the essay on Pope, contributed by De Quincey to the 
North British Review in 1858,^ he elaborates with great 
care the distinction, which he had drawn in his Letters to 
a Young Afan, between the "literature of Jmowledge^' and 
the "literature oi poiver'" : — "The function of the first is 
— to teach; the function of the second is — to move: the 
first is a rudder ; the second, an oar or a sail. The first 
speaks ultimately, it may happen, to the higher understand- 
ing or reason, but always through affections of pleasure or 
sympathy. . . . What do you learn from ' Paradise Lost ' .'' 
Nothing at all. What do you learn from a cookery- 
book ? Something new. . . . What you owe to Milton 
is not any knowledge, of w^hich a million separate items 
are still but a million advancing steps on the same earthly 
level; what you owe \s poiver — that is, exercise and expan- 
sion to your ow^n latent capacity of sympathy with the 
infinite, where every pulse and each separate influx is a 
step upwards, a step ascending as upon a Jacob's ladder 
from earth to mysterious altitudes above the earth." In 
most history, biography, and miscellaneous essays, as 
De Quincey takes pains to avow in a note, "threads of 
direct instruction intermingle in the texture with these 
threads of pozver,^^ and a third and mixed form is pro- 
duced in which the broad distinctions between his two 
great classes are lost. 

1 Works, Masson's Ed., Vol. XI, pp. 54-59; Riverside Ed., Vol. V, 
PP- 383-390- 



INTR ODUC TION xliii 

These distinctions, beyond all doubt, furnished in De 
Quincey's mind the basis for the "wide general classifica- 
tion " of his works which he attempted in the General 
Preface to his own edition of them. He distributes them 
into three classes: ^^ First, into that class which proposes 
primarily to amuse the reader, but which, in doing so, 
may or may not happen occasionally to reach a higher 
station, at which the amusement passes into an impas- 
sioned interest." The Autobiographic Sketches belong to 
this class. Into the second class he throws "those papers 
which address themselves purely to the understanding as 
an insulated faculty; or do so primarily." These essays 
must be judged, the author tells us, according to the char- 
acter of the problem each undertakes, and the ability and 
success attained in the solution of that problem. From 
these "problem papers" he selects especially those on 
The Essenes, The Ccesars, and Cicero as examples. " Finally, 
as a third class, and, in virtue of their aim, as a far higher 
class of compositions" he ranks ^'-The Confessions of an 
Opium-Eater, and also (but more emphatically) the Sics- 
piria de Profundis'^ "On these," he continues, "as modes 
of impassioned prose ranging under no precedents that I 
am aware of in any literature, it is much more difficult to 
speak justly, whether in a hostile or a friendly character." 

This classification is not perfect in point of accuracy, 
nor is it complete. It is clear that large portions of the 
Co7ifessions are not to be distinguished in any way from the 
Autobiographic Sketches, while parts of these again run into 
the purely intellectual vein. But the arrangement is useful 
because it brings into prominence the two strongly con- 
trasted sides of De Quincey, — the philosophical and what 
may be called the rhapsodical ; it emphasizes his two 
great powers, — the faculty of acute analysis and the 
faculty of soaring imagination. 



xliv INTRODUCTION 

A subdivision of the second class of writings, to which 
we will now for a moment confine ourselves, is evidently 
necessary; the recent arrangement of Professor Masson is 
as follows : 

{a) Biographies and Biographic Sketches, such as Shake- 
speare^ Goethe^ Pope ^ Bentle}\ 2ind /oa?i of Arc. 

{b) Historical Essays and Researches, such as The Ccesars. 
Cicero, Ho7iier and the Homeridce, and The Essenes. 

(c) Speculative and Theological Essays, like The System 
of the Heavejis, Plato's Republic, Christiafiity as an Organ of 
Political Movement, Protestantisfn, Modern Siiperstitio7i, Mur- 
der, and Suicide. 

(d) Essays in Political Economy and Politics, such as The 
Logic of Political Economy, Dialogues of Three Templars, and 
A Tory's Account of Toryism, IVhiggism, and Radicalism 

(e) Papers of Literary Theory and Criticism, such as 
Rhetoric, Style, Language, Conversation, Appraisal of Greek 
Literature, Poetry of Pope, Lite?'ary Portraits, and the brief 
but noteworthy monograph On the K7iocking at the Gate in 
''Macbeth:' 

A mere glance at the themes of this great mass of essay 
work imposes instant respect for the wide range of De 
Quincey's inquiring mind ; even a complete list of his 
writings would give, however, a very inadequate idea 
of the scope of his investigations, for one essay, as we 
have observed, may deal with many topics besides that 
one to which its title points. We see that De Quincey 
loses force as an essayist, by failing to keep his work 
within a field that he might hope with some adequacy to 
cover. Again, there is a tendency on his part, it appears, 
towards the choice of abstruse subjects for the sake of 
their abstruseness ; the writer loves a topic for the amount 
of speculative exercise he can get out of it. The weak- 
ness that lies behind both these faults is the defect of 



INTR on UC TION xl V 

De Quincey's character, — the aloofness of the man from 
the world. The Opium-Eater talked, we are told, as if he 
were ''reading from a handwriting on the wall"; he wrote 
with the same concentration of interest upon the subject 
and his speculations about it, and with the same slight 
consideration of the point of view and the advantage of 
his audience.^ There are times when he seems fairly to 
turn his back upon his readers while he sits in entranced 
rumination upon some delicate morsel of speculation. 
There are other moments, too, in these purely intellectual 
writings when De Quincey the rhapsodist seems to be with 
us, and not for our good. He becomes interested — again 
forgetting us — in the flow of his own periods, and, before 
the impulse has ceased, a page or two of words have been 
added that cover magnificently a very slender thread of 
matter. 

Beyond all cavil, however, De Quincey's analytical power 
was astonishing. His mind was, as he says, constitutionally 
apt to discover hidden analogies; it had been bent from 
very infancy upon intellectual pursuits, and through many 
years it had been nourished in solitude with a steadily 
increasing mass of miscellaneous knowledge. His power 
of analysis was therefore intense ; it was an intellectual 
engine of incalculable power. Yet in its own way it would 
seem that De Quincey's use of this great endowment had 
its touch bf that morbidness and excess which we have 
found ingrained in his character. Too often, as has been 
observed, however shrewd and however learned he may 
be, De Quincey is "as destitute of the true critical spirit, 
the sense of the actual, as anything can well be." That 
touch of hard-headedness, if we may so term it, which 

1 Cf. below, p. 231 : " But my way of writing is rather to think aloud, 
and follow my own humours, than much to consider who is listening 
to me." 



xl vi INTR OD UC TION 

cannot be gained from books or from solitary musing, but 
which is the endowment of a million common mortals 
of the uninspired world, — that little gift was denied to 
De Quincey. He is in his own way, to be sure, a most 
persistent investigator. Working in solitude, and wholly 
engrossed in his subject, he delights in supporting a 
theory with countless intellectual subtleties. Erudition 
and penetration he will display in abundance ; but we 
cannot at all times expect from him good judgment inf 
proportion to his critical insight and power. 

There might then be some doubt about the life of these 
essays of De Quincey if they stood alone, unsupported by 
such clear candidates for immortality as the Confessions 
and The Mail-Coach. Ranging over so wide a field, it is 
evident that he cannot make a thorough study of his sub- 
jects. Indeed, for the dog's work of tracking a theme 
through a mass of uninteresting '' material," De Quincey 
had no taste. It is unavoidable, therefore, that the weaker 
parts of his work should not rank above the quality of 
"respectable padding for magazines," and that not a little 
should be preserved in his Wo7'ks that has in itself but 
slight claim to republication. To compare him with a 
great contemporary who also wrote much for magazines, 
his essays when collected want the solid front presented 
by Macaulay's articles. The reader of De Quincey cannot 
range through a series of coordinate efforts that really 
make a book ; his interest in the System of the Heavens 
does not commend to him an account of Plato's Republic^ 
nor a paper on Modern Superstition^ nor articles on Mur- 
der 2>XiA Suicide, — all included in the same volume; and 
the student of the Logic of Political Ecoiumiy may view 
with some indifference its companion, A lory's Account of 
Toryism, Whiggisjn, and Radicalism. Contributors are 
often but desultory beings, but none of them ever equalled 



INTRODUCrrON xlvii 

De Quincey in "scattering his fire." If Macaulay has no 
more of original thought to offer us, there are yet some 
solid reasons why his critical and miscellaneous essays 
may outweigh De Quincey's as an effective contribution 
to our supply of good reading. 

To take up these writings of De Quincey in detail. I 
do not know that any of his speculative or theological 
essays, so called, has an important place in the literature 
of its subject to-day. His work in political economy, 
while esteemed at the time as a useful elucidation of 
Ricardo, no longer makes great claims upon the attention 
of the students of that science. He has left behind him 
hardly a fragment that might even preserve the memory 
of his deep interest in metaphysics and his considerable 
pretensions as a philosopher. His volumes of history, 
biography, and literary criticism, however, give us an 
impression of greater solidity and permanency. To speak 
first of the historical essays, The Casars was meant, to 
quote De Quincey, " as a specimen of fruits, gathered 
hastily and without effort, by a vagrant but thoughtful 
mind," with "so much, at least, of originality as ought not 
to have been left open to anybody in the nineteenth cen- 
tury." The Cicero is a "new reading of Roman history in 
the most dreadful and comprehensive of her convulsions," 
showing how Cicero was "governed in one half by his own 
private interest as a novus homo dependent upon a wicked 
oligarchy, and in the other half by his blind hatred of 
Caesar ; the grandeur of whose nature he could not com- 
prehend, and the real patriotism of whose policy could 
never be appreciated by one bribed to a selfish course." 
The article on the Esse/ies is an attempt in which the 
author took great interest and pride, to show that that 
sect was the "early Christians, locally in danger, and 
therefore locally putting themselves, with the wisdom of 



xlviii INTRODUCTION 

the serpent, under a cloud of disguise," — a theory whid 
more recent investigations have not supported. In th< 
Revolt of the Tartars De Quincey seizes an historical even 
of great scenic power and develops with brilliant succesi 
its dramatic capabilities ; the essay exhibits in a higl 
degree the Opium-Eater's tendency, not exactly to give J 
story a "cocked hat and cane," but at least to pass \\ 
through the crucible of his imagination without taking 
the trouble to note that the process has taken place. Ii 
many respects, however, this is the most attractive o; 
De Quincey's historical writings, and there are passage 
of prose in it that vie with the '' purple patches " o 
his professedly imaginative prose. Of the biographies w 
should probably select Shakespeare^ Richard Bentley^ and" 
Joa7i of Arc as representing the high level of De Quincey's 
workmanship. The life of Shakspere has by no means 
lost its usefulness, even in this flood tide of Shakspere 
literature. The author at the outset puts his ban upon the 
notion that the great dramatist was little known through- 
out the seventeenth century ; and he offers the Parlia- 
mentary War, the fact that Shakspere was a player, the 
burning of the Globe Theatre, etc., as explanations — not, 
of course, original — of the meagreness of our knowledge of 
the greatest figure in literature. His biography of Bentley 
is, in view of the comparative lack of attention to the sub- 
ject on the part of others, probably the most useful of al 
his essays in this kind. He would have us know that th( 
famous scholar was also a great man ; and there are fev 
more delightful stories than his account of the celebratec 
fight to oust his hero from the Mastership of Trinity, — hoM 
after twenty-nine years of legal effort on the part of hij 
adversaries "the smoke of Bentley's pipe still ascended in 
Trinity Lodge," and "his enemies became finally satisfied 
that 'this world was made for Caesar.'" If the account 



INTROD UC TION xlix 

of Joan of Arc is better known than any similar paper, it 
is for excellence of a special kind ; merely as an adequate 
biography it can hardly vie with the life of Bentley. But 
it is a far more brilliant piece of English, because it pos- 
sesses not only many touches of humor and pathos, but it 
displays an eloquence that here and there rises into the 
sublime. The life of La Pucelle seized upon De Quincey's 
imagination as did the migration of the Tartars, and the 
result is again a work that is by no means merely a contri- 
bution to the "literature of knowledge." 

De Quincey's ventures in literary criticism were not 
always successful, but his efforts in the theory of prose- 
writing have apparently their assured place among the 
classics in their department. The essays on Style^ Rhet- 
oric^ Language^ and Conversation have all the value of the 
words of an expert. De Quincey's literary verdicts vary 
greatly in value. He failed surprisingly in his estimate of 
Werther as the best of Goethe's works, as well as in the 
dictum that the reputation of Goethe at his death "must 
decline for a generation or two, until it reaches its true 
level. "^ He seems to have been unable to appreciate 
rightly great humorists like Swift. He appeared to regard 
a preference for Thackeray over Dickens as simply "a 
crotchety illusion or a blind partiality."'^ Not many of us 
will be able to concur in his decided exaltation of Milton 
above Dante.^ Yet there is much in De Quincey's literary 



1 These judgments occur in the life of Goethe, Works, Masson's Ed., 
Vol. IV, p. 421 ; Riverside Ed., Vol. VI, p. 442. Cf. close of Remi- 
niscences of Coleridge, Masson's Ed., Vol. II, p. 225 ; Riverside Ed., 
Vol. Ill, p. 259. 

2 Rev. Francis Jacox, Page's Life, Vol. I, p. 386. 

2 This passage from the less accessible part of De Quincey's writings 
is worthy of quotation : " Nobody will pretend to show us in any Con- 
tinental creation the least approach toward the colossal sublimities of 



1 INTR on UC TION | 

criticisms that is both wise and inspiring. His estimate of 
Lamb's works as "cabinet specimens which express the 
utmost delicacy, purity and tenderness of the national 
intellect, together with the rarest felicity of finish and 
expression," is especially satisfying; and as he has justly 
claimed, he did his countrymen a great if unappreciated 
service in pointing out even in the first decade of this cem 
tury the true position of Wordsworth among our poets, an(^ 
defending that singular view with all the ardor of youthful 
discipleship. Finally, the little paper On the Knocking ai 
the Gate in ^''Macbeth " is interesting in several ways. It is 
a classical instance of the peculiar faculty of discovering 
hidden analogies of which De Quincey boasts ; like Lamb's 
essay on the tragedies of Shakspere considered as to theiri 
fitness for stage representation, it is an early note of thj 
great burden of rational Shakspere appreciation that took 
its rise, in England, in the lectures of Coleridge ; and it is 
a contribution from one who does not rank among th( 
great commentators upon the Elizabethan drama, whicl 
no such commentator can afford to neglect. There is, ir 
fact, no part of De Quincey's additions to literature ir 
which he has more clearly redeemed for all time a bi 
of the unknown. 

the • Paradise Lost.' ... As to Dante, it is not awe and shadow; 
terror which preside in his poetry, but carnal horror. Like all thos« 
who treat a dreadful theme, he was tempted by the serpent to eat fron 
the tree of fleshly horror ; he did eat ; and in that hour his poet 
became tainted with the principle of death. Even for the present 
with national jealousy working through six centuries on its behalf, liv 
it does not. It does not abide in the heart of man, nor domineer by 
mighty shadows over the brains of men." — Japp, Eclectic Magazine 
New Series, Vol. XLIV, p. 505. 



INTR ODUC TION 



VI 



In a discussion of that part of De Quincey's work gath- 
ered in his first and third divisions a word may be spared to 
the Tales and Romances, which, partly through the author's 
'own fault perhaps, are his least known works. Setting 
aside the mere translations, there are three original tales : 
^ The Household Wrecks a painful story of English domestic 
'life ; The Avenger^ a very harrowing German tale ; and 
Klosterhei7n. The last named is one of the two works of 
•De Quincey that appeared originally in book form. It is 
ia German story of some length, and it represents the best 
that De Quincey could accomplish in this direction. Like 
all his romances, it recalls Mrs. Baird Smith's avowal of 
her father's "demand for the excitement of fear." "When 
ihe was chilling our marrow with awesome stories of ghosts, 
murders and mysteries," she writes, "he only thought he 
was producing a luxurious excitement." If De Quincey 
as a novelist had a model, it is to be found in Charles 
Robert Maturin, the head of the School of Terror in the 
English novel. At all events, he did not conceal his admi- 
ration for such works as The Fa7fiily of Montorio and Mei- 
moth, greatly preferring them to Miss Edgeworth's novels 
3f uneventful domestic life, with her array of "prudence, 
discretion and the like sober sisterhood." The story of 
The Spanish Military Nun, though not original, has been 
>o De Quinceyfied that its literary parent would hardly 
•ecognize it ; it is the pleasantest reading of all these tales, 
'"or it adds touches of real humor to the interest of situa- 
;ion and incident. This question of De Quincey's humor, 
Which the story of the fighting nun brings before us, can- 
lot be treated without drawing into the discussion his 
greatest effort in the humorous, the amazing lectures 0?i 
Murder Considered as one of the Fine Arts. Critics have 



lii INTRODUCTION 






differed on this point widely. A Westminster reviewer in 
1854 gave our author short shrift with the words: "Never 
was there anyone with less humor, or except in merely 
verbal matters less faculty of wit. At times sarcastic pun- 
gency and at times an amusing quaintness. But that is 
all." That is not much, certainly; yet such a censure, 
though itself extreme, may indicate very well the limita- 
tion of De Quincey's powers. No one would go to the 
Opium-Eater, as nowadays we go to the theatre, to have a 
hearty laugh. He can compel no man to mirth by the 
bubbling over of such a spontaneous fountain of humor 
as we find in some famous Americans ; he has no vein of 
veiled irony, delicate but certain of its effect, like Thack- 
eray's ; nor, on the other hand, has he that feeling of the 
helpless absurdity of little man out of which the satire of a 
Swift might grow. The humor of De Quincey is in its 
nature conscious even to being strained ; it is generally 
narrow in its object, — confined to the " art of telling a story 
with quaint garnishings," or the scholarly and severe han- 
dling of some trifle. To be sure he tells a story admirably 
in this way. There is nothing better of their kind than his 
relation of a certain mishap of the elder Coleridge,^ the 
true narration of General William de Quincey and the 
factory boys, and the veracious chronicles of the king- 
doms of Gombroon and Tigrosylvania.-^ And furthermore, 
if the lectures on Murder suffer from being too evidently 
the manufactured article, they are none the less a unique 
creation. It is likely that to people of delicate sensibilities 
they will never be agreeable reading ; and, on the other 
hand, to compare them with Swift's Proposal for cooking 
the unused children of Ireland is to miss a fundamenta 

1 See Works, Masson's Ed., Vol. TI, p. 165; Riverside Ed., Vol. III. 
p. 185. 

- Cf. below, pp. 36 <'/ seq. 



INTRODUCTION liii 

part of the greatness of all Swift's work — the awful query 
that suggests itself in this case whether the children are 
likely to be better off if left to their miserable existence. 
There is nothing of this sort behind De Quincey's papers ; 
they are pure extravaganzas existing only for their absurd- 
ity. But they are monumental essays in the incongruous, 
ind so long as boys and men love to break the prison of 
:onvention — to shock propriety and defy probability, — 
they will have their place — a singular but secure one — 
in literary art. 

The papers which readers of recent editions of De Quin- 
cey know as the Autobiography and Litera?-y Reminiscences 
nave been gathered from many sources. The Autobiography 
IS far as the year 1803 was made up, with much cutting, 
iovetailing, and refurbishing, by De Quincey himself for 
lis collective edition out of the original Autobiogi-aphic 
Sketches in Taifs Magazine^ some much later articles in 
Hogg's Instricctor^ and certain fragments of the Suspiria 
ie Profundis that served his purpose. The rest of the auto- 
biographic papers were left untouched by their author in 
;he pages of Tait^ from which later editors have rescued 
:hem. The Reminiscences of literary friends in London and 
;he Lakes, which had come out in Tait concurrently with 
:he Autobiography^ — to which they are closely allied, — 
nust also for the most part be reprinted directly from the 
Magazine; the chief Coleridge and Wordsworth papers, 
lowever, were reproduced by De Quincey in his edition, 
:he former with extensive revision. It follows necessarily 
that these papers as a whole present an extremely dis- 
lointed and formless appearance ; even in the first part of 
the Autobiography^ which De Quincey revised, there seems 
to have been no attempt to achieve artistic unity. But for 
ill that, these volumes contain a notable revelation of the 
versatility — moral as well as intellectual — of the great 



liv INTRODUCTION 

contributor. Where else in any document or collection of 
cognate documents in modern literature are fine narra- 
tive, splendid prose-poetry, shrewd speculation, varied eru- 
dition, and incisive criticism so jumbled together, and only 
to give place to mere trivial and ill-natured gossip in the 
end ! 

To touch for a moment upon the Rejnmiscences . The 
action of De Quincey as editor would seem to have evinced 
some doubt of their permanent value. Many of them, as 
he well knew, were written hastily as "potboilers," and 
were felt, perhaps, to need more extensive rehandling than 
he had time to give them. But there has been the widest 
difference of opinion among later critics concerning those 
papers upon which their author bestowed the deliberate 
approval of republication. "Of Wordsworth's demeanour 
and physical presence," writes Mr. John Morley, " De Quin- 
cey 's account, silly, coxcombical and vulgar, is the worst.' 
Miss Mitford, on the other hand, found "the truth and 
life of these Lake sketches something wonderful," and 
Dr. Japp is sure that in this comment most readers will 
find evidence of the lady's " singular impartiality and 
good judgment." Sara Coleridge, even in complaining oi 
the harsh treatment of the character of the great poet- 
philosopher by his disciple, feels constrained to add, " He 
has characterized my father's genius and peculiar mode o 
discourse with 'great eloquence and discrimination." Per- 
haps we have here a critical problem that no single formula 
will solve ; the personal equation is very important. Wer 
De Quincey's accounts of the personality of these men ol 
letters the only descriptions of them we could receive, 
we should certainly wish much added to them — and not a 
little expunged ; yet even the worst of these papers, through 
the writer's peculiar insight, — his power of investigation 
and comparison, — adds something to our pictures of the 



INTR OD UCTION Iv 

men and women he knew. These Reminiscences^ however, 
have other claims upon our attention ; they are in great 
measure avowed or unintentional accounts of De Quincey's 
relations with his literary friends, and they throw strong 
side-lights on the character of their writer. After the pub- 
lication of Shelley's letters Matthew Arnold expressed his 
regret that he had not been permitted to retain the impres- 
sion left by the poet's nobler work ; many readers may in 
like manner prefer a pruned De Quincey. But the author 
of the fourteen volumes is, for good or ill, the De Quincey 
we know, and we must even be content to follow the Opium- 
Eater, as he " dips his pencil " no longer in the " gloom of 
earthquake and eclipse," but in the very garish light of 
petty innuendo and bickering. And it is as strange as it 
is sad that De Quincey, of all men, cannot be protected 
from such unpleasant adjectives as Mr. Morley's, that this 
shrinking figure in the duffle greatcoat should ever be cox- 
combical, that this tiny Chesterfield should ever be vulgar, 
that such a polymath should at times become silly. 

The Autobiography, strictly so called, we may read with 
less dubious emotions. These early chapters in the Opium- 
Eater's life have been called by one appreciative reviewer 
very finely "the diploma of his genius." We should echo 
this encomium, however, with some reserve. The mere 
question of the value of these papers as records of fact 
we may set aside. Mr. Dykes Campbell thinks that, long 
before this, De Quincey had lost "the power of distin- 
guishing between facts and fancies " ^ ; but that is not 
exactly the nature of the exception that must be taken to 
this autobiography. We have already touched upon the 
isolation and secretiveness of De Quincey. He is the last 
man from whom we should expect frank revelations of per- 
sonal character ; and, as a matter of fact, we do not in any 
1 J. D. Campbell, Life of S. T. Coleridge, p. 125. 



Ivi INTRODUCTION 

considerable measure receive them. The De Quincey of 
the Autobiography is essentially a literary creation, and the 
description is of a typical rather than an individual char- 
acter. We may affirm or deny at will that the writer adhered 
to fact in this narrative, but such asseveration will not 
carry us very far towards a just appreciation of his work. 
His handling of events is probably here what it is in the 
Confessiojis, accurate perhaps, — as he so earnestly avers, — 
but utterly arbitrary, utterly fragmentary. The Opium- 
Eater had set himself a more congenial task than the 
patient chronicling of events. In his time literature in its 
expanding sympathies had found a place of importance 
for the child. Since Rousseau's Emih\ had come the day 
of children's stories and of schemes without number for the 
education of children; especially, of course, Wordsworth 
had impressed this subject upon De Quincey's mind. In 
composing the Siispiria he began with The Affliction of 
Childhood (afterwards incorporated in the Autobiography)^ 
wrote another piece on The Solitude of Childhood^ and pro- 
jected yet a third called The Dreadful Lifant. Now, very 
many of these autobiographic papers are merely pleasant 
talk about persons and places that he had seen in his 
youth, and contribute nothing to their avowed object at 
all. Those parts of the work, however, which at least pur- 
port to be self-descriptive all handle their theme in this 
idealizing way, — creating a type rather than re-creating a 
person. It is then a study of a child of talent that we 
receive from De Quincey, — an exaltation, an apotheosis, of 
childhood, in which the early experiences and sensations 
of the writer are lighted by the "glory of innocence made 
perfect " and touched by the " dreadful beauty of infancy 
that has seen God."^ 

1 Cf. De Quincey's note for The Dreadful Infant, quoted below in the 
first note on the Suspiria, p. 471. 



INTR OD L ^C TION 1 vii 

The Co7ifessions of an English Opiii77i- Eater is one of the 
few popular books that are candidates for favor in two 
greatly differing forms. After the two magazine articles 
of 182 1, De Quincey had promised a third part, for which 
the edition of 1822 offered only a brief appendix. In this 
condition the book was a household companion in England 
and America for more than thirty years. In 1856, how- 
ever, as Vol. V of De Quincey's Selections Grai'e and Gay, 
appeared a new version of the work, three times as large 
as the original form. It would seem that the reading 
public has never been willing to surrender the shorter 
form, and the American Riverside Edition has very wisely 
retained it. Professor Masson, however, in reediting the 
English Collected Works, takes a decided position in favor 
of the later version in these words : " By his [De Quincey's] 
own act and deed the enlarged edition of 1856 was intended 
to be the final edition, superseding the other ; and by /lis 
intention we are bound to abide." ^ The last part of this 
statement is surely open to question ; it is not clear that 
De Quincey's readers are bound — even at his bidding — 
to discard a terse and powerful account of his opium expe- 
riences for a voluminous, wandering, and often conflicting 
rifacimetito of his old age; and in this sense the 1856 
edition certainly has not superseded the other. But did 
De Quincey intend this to be the final edition ? As Vol. V 
was issuing from the press he wrote to his daughter Emily, 
in part, as follows : " Reviewing the volume as a whole, 
. . . greatly I doubt whether many readers will not prefer 
it in its original fragmentary state to its present full-blown 
development. But if so, why could I not have felt this 
objection many weeks since ? . . . The truth is, I did 
feel it, but ... a doubt had arisen whether ... I could 
count upon bringing together enough of the < Suspiria ' 
1 De Quincey, Works, Masson's Ed., Vol. Ill, p. 9. 



1 viii INTR OD UC TION 

(yet unpublished) materially to enlarge the volume.^ . . . 
Such being the case, no remedy remained but that I should 
doctor \\\& book, and expand it into a portliness that might 
countenance its price. . . . Hereafter it will travel into a 
popular edition, priced suppose one half-crown instead of 
three; and in that edition I can profit by the opinions 
reported."- A letter of November, 1856, to his daughter 
Margaret is even more explicit : " A copy of the * Confes- 
sions ' was sent to you on Tuesday. . . . Criticise furi- 
ously and without mercy. The next will be the final 
edition, far different and far better." ^ It seems quite clear, 
then, that De Quincey regarded these two versions of his 
best known work as rival candidates for popular favor, 
that he felt pretty sure that the public would prefer the 
former, and that on the whole he was inclined to concur 
in that opinion. Be that as it may, the edition " intended 
to be final " was never prepared. 

We have in the letters quoted above one among many 
evidences of the pains that De Quincey was disposed to 
spend upon these Confessions. There can be no doubt that 
he viewed them, with their adjuncts, the Suspiria, as the 
crown and glory of his authorship. The care bestowed, in 
the revision, upon many of the minutest alterations not 
only bespeaks the literary artist, but also displays the 
intense ardor of a voluminous writer adorning his fancy's 
favorite child. 

The additions to the Confessions, when not merely pleas- 
ant phrase-making, are valuable chiefly as a running com- 
mentary on some of the incidents of the earlier version. 
It may be, as the author assured his daughters at the 
time, that in the edition of 1856 nothing was introduced 

1 See the first note on the Suspiria, below, pp. 470-473. 

2 See Page's Life, Vol. II, p. no. 
'^ Ibid., Vol. II, p. 125. 



INTRODUCTION lix 

that did not originally belong to his outline of the work ; if 
so, we may the more abundantly rejoice that stern necessity 
and opium had left him in 182 1 neither time nor energy 
to carry out that plan. As to the Confessions of 182 1, 
it is doubtful if anything that followed it destroyed the 
primacy of this "first heir of his invention." Certainly no 
later effort has taken the same hold upon the popular mind. 
The intense interest aroused by the work at the time has 
never died out, and it has at this day many readers that 
hardly know who the Opium-Eater was or ever glance at 
his many volumes of classic prose. To this exclusive 
attachment, however, the author would certainly have 
demurred. De Quincey is accustomed to speak of the 
Confessions and Siispi?Ha together as the acme of his lit- 
erary achievements ; whenever he distinguishes between 
them, however, he seems greatly to prefer the later work. 
" Whatever pleasure you may at any time have found in 
the original ' Confessions,'" he writes to Professor Lushing- 
ton,^ " will probably be trebled in this second series. . . . 
I, if at all I can pretend to judge in such a case, think 
them very greatly superior to the first." In point of style 
there can be little doubt that the best of the Suspiria excel 
the Confessions : they are more finished specimens of literary 
art ; they are purer — and so far better — examples of 
De Quincey's peculiar mode of imaginative prose. On the 
other hand, these " Sighs from the Depths " can be termed 
Confessions only in a technical sense. It is true that they 
present " dreams and noon-day visions " that arose " under 
the latter stages of opium influence " ; and that their mate- 
rial is not intrinsically different from that of the original 

1 Letter of February, 1845 (Page's Life, Vol. I, pp. ZTi^-iy))- It is 
impossible to tell just what Suspiria were then in existence ; for a dis- 
cussion of the whole complicated question of the origin of these pieces, 
see the first note on the Suspii'ia, below, pp. 470-473. 



Ix IN TROD UC TION 

work. But the treatment is radically changed. Deficient 
as the Confessions may be in revealing the character of its 
writer, the interest in that production is still centred upon 
the sufferer, — upon the seer of visions and the dreamer of 
terrible dreams. In the Suspiria, on the contrary, attention 
is quite withdrawn from the Opium-Eater, to be fixed upon 
the unearthly pictures made real by his glowing pen. It 
was at all times, as has been intimated, De Quincey's dear 
defect to theorize, subtilize, and endlessly refine until sor- 
row seems to vanish into the thin air of speculation or be 
lost amid the mazes of brilliant rhetoric. But it is prob- 
able that in 182 1 the pleasures and pains of opium were 
too new and too real to be treated as objects of speculation 
or studies in style. At all events we have here altogether 
the most powerful record of actual personal experience that 
De Quincey ever put upon paper, and it would seem that 
this book, of all that he wrote, has the vitality that can 
compel attention from many generations of readers. 

The style of the Confessions and Suspiria has been the 
theme of universal praise,^ and critics have generally agreed 
that it partakes somewhat of the peculiar beauty of poetry. 
The great artist-poet of our day, we are told, in reciting 
a brilliant passage -^ from the Cofifessions, characterized 
De Quincey's prose as some of the finest in the English lan- 
guage, "not poetry, but as fine as any verse." ^ It will be 
remembered, however, that a very unusual pretension was 
made for these pieces by their author, who drew especial 
attention to them as '* modes of impassioned prose ranging 
under no precedents in literature." What is this depart- 
ment of " impassioned prose " to which De Quincey lays 

1 Professor Minto's Manual of English Prose Literature provides an 
admirable analysis of De Quincey's style, pp. 49-76. 

2 '* Yet I knew . . . legions." Cf. below, p. 241, lines 25-32. 

3 H. Tennyson, Alfred Lord Tennyson^ Vol. II, p. 414. 



INTRODUCTION Ixi 

exclusive claim ? De Quincey has strangely neglected to 
reply to this natural query, and we are indebted for our 
answer to the efforts of his latest editor. By bringing 
together the sense of many scattered passages, Professor 
Masson has arrived at the following highly interesting 
result. 

It appears that De Quincey considered three kinds of 
prose worthy of recognition as literary art: i. Rhetorical 
Prose. What De Quincey meant by the name '' rhetoric " or 
a rhetorical style was "the art of rich or ornate style, the 
art of conscious playing with a subject intellectually and 
inventively, and of never leaving it till it has been bro- 
caded with the utmost possible amount of subsidiary 
thought, humour, fancy, ornamentation, and anecdote." ^ 
The first very eminent "rhetorician" in English literature, 
De Quincey tells us, is Donne ; then come Burton, Milton, 
Jeremy Taylor, and Sir Thomas Browne.^ To De Quincey 
himself belongs a very high place among representatives 
of this rich style in English prose, but evidently his 
writings in this kind are by no means unique. 2. Elo- 
que7it Prose, or Prose Eloquence. This is evidently oratory, 
the literature of strong emotion, of which we have 
many exemplars in English prose. That mode of prose 
eloquence, however, in which De Quincey could claim 
to stand alone was evidently, as Professor Masson sug- 
gests, " a kind of new lyrical prose that could undertake 
the expression of feelings till then supposed unutterable 
except in verse. Oratory in some of its extremes — as 
when the feeling to be expressed is peculiarly keen and 
ecstatic — does tend to pass into song or metrical lyric; 

1 This and the two succeeding quotations are from the preface to 
Vol. XIII of Masson's De Qtiincey's Works. 

2 Essay on Rhetoric, Works, Riverside Ed., Vol. IV, pp. 330-341 ; 
Masson's Ed., Vol. X, pp. 100-109. 



Ixi i INTK OD UC TION 

and De Quincey, in order to extend the powers of prose in 
this extreme and difficult direction, proposed to institute, 
we may say, a new form of prose literature nameable as 
the prose-lyric." 3. Frose Fajitasy or Prose- Poetry. "Not 
only is it certain that even such solid matter of phantasy 
or * feigned history ' as may be undertaken in prose receives 
incalculable modifications when it is lifted into verse ; but 
it is also certain that there are peculiar kinds of phantasy 
for which Prose in all ages has felt itself incompetent, or 
which it has been too shamefaced to attempt. Such, in 
especial, are the visionary phantasies that form themselves 
in the poetic mind in its most profound fits of solitary 
self-musing, its hours of inventive day-dream in some 
sequestered nook of rocky sea-shore, or of long nocturnal 
reverie withindoors over the embers of a dying lire. Now, 
as De Quincey had been a dreamer all his life, with an 
abnormal faculty of dreaming at work in him constitution- 
ally from his earliest infancy, and with the qualification 
moreover that he had unlocked the terrific potencies of 
opium for the generation of dreams beyond the human, 
his idea seems to have been that, if prose would but exert 
itself, it could compass, almost equally with verse, or even 
better, the representation of some forms at least of dream- 
experience and dream-phantasmagory. Add this idea to 
that other of the possibility of a prose-lyric that should 
rival the verse-lyric in ability to express the keenest and 
rarest forms of human feeling, or suppose the two ideas 
combined, and De Quincey's conception of the exact 
nature of his service towards the extension of the liberties 
and powers of English prose will be fully apprehended." 

It may be that there is no prose quite like the most bril- 
liant strains of De Quincey. Milton, Browne, and Taylor 
certainly influenced him, and the names of Jean Paul and 
Ruskin occur to us in this connection. But, whatever 



INTRODUCTION Ixiii 

isolation may be claimed for him, let it be remembered that 
De Quincey's faculty was the gift of Heaven and not of 
opium. He possessed without other conspicuous poetical 
gifts a power of imagination generally restricted to poets ; 
he had a command over prose expression so far denied to 
them : the combination of these powers in him was exercised 
very often upon the visions of his opium slumbers ; it was 
developed, however, occasionally with great success in the 
treatment of other material. The narcotic could confer 
no such power ; indeed, it was far more apt to deprive him 
of all powers. 



VII 

De Quincey's style, in whatever kind of writing he 
attempted, has now for many years been zealously 
bepraised, and he has suffered everything that academic 
analysis can do to make masterpieces commonplace. The 
extent of his vocabulary and the aptness with which it is 
used, the variety of his sentence structure and the ease 
and grace he lends to the weighty periodic form, his trans- 
parent clearness and his sympathetic tone, — these excel- 
lencies and superiorities have all been exploited again and 
again. And then we pass on to those special achieve- 
ments of his in the small cabinet-piece — to the gorgeous 
imagery, the unique poetical quality of style — that have 
thrown a nimbus of glory about the " Ladies of Sorrow " 
and " Savannah-la-Mar." 

Occasion has arisen already in these pages to speak of 
details in De Quincey's style that especially reveal the man, 
and his prose-poetry has just been treated at some length. 
One great quality, however, which has been touched upon 
but briefly, deserves in my opinion the position of emphasis 
in these closing paragraphs. Mr. Saintsbury has spoken 



Ixiv INTRODUCTION 

of the strong appeal that De Quincey makes to boys.^ It 
is not without significance that he mentions as especially 
attractive to the young only writings with a large narrative 
element.-^ Few boys read poetry, whether in verse or prose, 
and fewer still criticism or philosophy ; to every normal 
boy the gate of good literature is the good story. It is 
the narrative skill of De Quincey that has secured for him, 
in preference to other writers of his class, the favor of 
youthful readers. 

It would be too much to say that the talent that attracts 
the young to him must needs be the Opium-Eater's grand 
talent, though the notion is defensible, seeing that only 
salient qualities in good writing appeal to inexperienced 
readers. I believe, however, that this skill in narration is 
De Quincey's most persistent quality, — the golden thread 
that unites all Ms most distinguished and most enduring 
work. And it is with him a part of his genius for style. 
Creative power of the kind that goes to the makingj\of plots 
De Quincey had not ; he has proved that forever by the 
mediocrity of Klostci'heim. Give him Bergmann's account 
of the Tartar Migration, or the story of the Fighting Nun, 
— give him the matter, — and a brilliant narrative will 
result. Indeed, De Quincey loved a story for its own 
sake ; he rejoiced to see it extend its winding course before 
him ; he delighted to follow it, touch it, color it, see it 
grow into body and being under his hand. That this 
enthusiasm should now and then tend to endanger the 

1 " Probably more boys have in the last forty years been brought to 
a love of literature proper by De Quincey than by any other writer_ 
whatever." — History of Nineteenth Century Literature, p. 198. 

2 " To read the Essay on Murder, the English Mail Coach, The Spa 
ish Nun, The Caesars, and half a score other things at the age of abou 
fifteen or sixteen is, or ought to be, to fall in love with them." — Essay 
in English Literature, iy8 0-1860, p. 307. 



INTRODUCTION Ixv 

integrity of the facts need not surprise us ; as I have said 
in another place, accuracy in these matters is hardly to be 
expected of De Quincey. And we can take our pleasure 
in the skillful unfolding of the dramatic narrative of the 
Tartar Flight — we can feel the author's joy in the scenic 
possibilities of his theme — even if we know that here and 
there an incident appears that is quite in its proper place 
— but is unknown to history.^ 

In his Confessio7is the same constructive power bears its 
part in the author's triumph. A peculiar end was to be 
reached in that narrative, — an end in which the writer 
had a deep personal interest. What is an opium-eater ? 
Says a character in a recent work of fiction, of a social 
wreck : " If it isn't whiskey with him, it's opium ; if it isn't 
opium, it's whiskey." This speech establishes the popular 
category in which De Quincey's habit had placed him. 
Our attention was to be drawn from these degrading con- 
nections. And this is done not merely by the correction 
of some widespread fallacies as to the effects of the drug ; 
far more it is the result of narrative skill. As we follow 
with ever-increasing sympathy the lonely and sensitive 
child, the wandering youth, the neuralgic patient, into the 
terrible grasp of opium, who realizes, amid the gorgeous 
delights and the awful horrors of the tale, that the writer, 
is after all the victim of the worst of bad habits ? We 
can hardly praise too highly the art which even as we look 
beneath it throws its glamour over us still. 

Nor is it only in this constructive power, in the selection 
and arrangement of details, that De Quincey excels as a 
narrator ; a score of minor excellencies of his style, such 
as the fine Latin words or the sweeping periodic sentences, 
contribute to the effective progress of his narrative prose. 
Mr. Lowell has said that *' there are no such vistas and 
1 Cf. above, p. xl. 



Ixv i INTRO D UC TTON 

avenues of verse as Milton's." The comparison with the 
great Puritan is somewhat hazardous for our author, still I 
should like to venture the parallel claim that there are no 
such streams of prose as De Quincey's. The movement of 
his discourse is that of the broad river, not in its weight 
or force perhaps, but in its easy flowing progress, in its 
serene, unhurried certainty of its end. To be sure, only 
too often the waters overflow their banks and run far afield 
in alien channels. Yet, when great power over the instru- 
ment of language is joined to so much constructive skill 
the result is narrative art of high quality, — an achievemen 
that must be in no small measure the solid basis o 
De Quincey's fame. 



I- 

I 



A word to sum up. One title all will concede to De 
Quincey; he was the "great contributor" of his day. N 
other man has won so important a place in literature merely 
through the magazine. His excellencies and his defects 
are in great measure those of his calling. His name can- 
not be said to be associated with any sustained effort o 
the intellect nor with any great and novel idea. Assuredlj 
he was not capable of such prolonged endeavor, and it ij 
doubtful if even necessity would have brought him to thi 
exertions that he made, had not the modern magazine 
come into being just in time. Yet, not only were hii 
attainments extensive, his powers of mind were undoubt 
edly very great ; of De Quincey intellectually one may sa) 
— with a certain lowering of the scale — what he said o 
Burke : " His great and peculiar distinction was that h< 
viewed all objects of the understanding under more rela 
tions than other men and under more complex relations." 

The writer has ventured to express in these pages 
preference for the Confessions over any of De Quincey 
later work, because, in a word, there is more of De Quince) 



INTRODUCTION Ixvii 

in it. The elusive personality of tlie opium sufferer is to 
me ever replete with interest and charm. It is a question, 
after all, in this case whether the man be not more inter- 
esting than his work ; both are in the highest degree 
perplexing. Some of his critics have essayed to settle 
all problems concerning De Quincey with a few telling 
phrases. " Clever brains and shallow character " is one 
recent dictum. Surely the English Opium-Eater is not to 
be so readily stamped, sealed, and directed to Oblivion. A 
very high order of cleverness goes to the making of his 
fourteen volumes ; and, as to his character, we have a 
quarrel again with the adjective employed. If De Quincey 
lived apart from the moral interests and enthusiasms of 
[lis generation, let us not forget that in many a solitary 
dour he fought his own bitter fight against the "unimagi- 
nable trance and agony that cannot be remembered." A 
hild he was in practical affairs, but, as Carlyle reminds 
is: '■'■ Eccovi^ this child has been in hell!" Let us admit, 
hen, that there was a touch of greatness, if only that, 
ipon the man and his work; and for the rest, — he had 
ofty visions of the possibilities of such a mind as his, 
granted only certain adult qualities of concentration and 
organization that he did not possess. 



Ixviii INTRODUCTION 



VIII 
A BRIEF BIBLIOGRAPHY 

I. Works 

1. Confessions of an English Opium- Eate?: London : Printed 

for Taylor and Hessey, Fleet Street, 1822. [An American 
edition, Philadelphia, 1823, There were six English issues 
before the enlarged edition of 1856, in Selections Grav 
and Gay.'] 1 

2. Klostei'heini; or The Masque. By the English Opiuni-Eatet 

Edinburgh and London, 1832. 

3. The Logic of Political Economy., by Thomas De Quincey 

Edinburgh, 1844. ♦ 

4. De Quincey'' s Writings. Boston: Ticknor & Fields, 1851- 

59. [22 vols., each with an independent title : 20 vols, 
1851-56; 2 vols., 1859.] 

5. Selections., Gra7>e and Gay, from Writings, published and 

unpublished., of Thomas de Quincey, revised and aiTanged 
by himself. Edinburgh: J. Hogg, 1853-60. [14 vols.; 
the last was nearly ready when De Quincey died.] 

6. TJie Collected Worhs of Thomas de Quincey. Author's Edi 

tion. With Portrait and Illustrations. Edinburgh : A. ani 
C. Black, 1862-71. [14 vols. (1862-63), containing thi 
pieces printed in the Hogg Ed., the ownership of which" 
had passed to the Blacks, rearranged and with the addition 
of two treatises; 2 vols. (1863 and 1871) giving neM 
matter.] 

7. The If^or/cs of Thomas de Quincey. Riverside Edition 

Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1877. [12 vols., witl 
notes and index. A reissue of the Fields Ed 
improvements.] 



* 



f 

INTRODUCTION Ixix 

8. The Works of Thomas de Qiiincey, " The English Opium- 

Eater,'' including all his contributions to Periodical Litera- 
ture. Edinburgh: A. and C. Black, 1878. [No. 6, a little 
altered and enlarged. Reprinted in 1880.] 

9. Thomas de Qidncey : Confessions of an English Opiu77i- 

Eater. Reprinted from the first edition, with Notes of 
De Quincey's Conversations by Richard Woodhouse, and 
other additions [in particular, Alfred de Musset's French 
continuation of the Confessions, with the Opium-Eater's 
second meeting with Anne]. Edited by Richard Garnett. 
London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Triibner & Co., Ltd., 1885. 

10. The Collected Writings of Thomas de Qnincey. New and 

enlarged edition by David Masson. Edinburgh : A. and 
C. Black, 1889-90. [14 vols., with footnotes, a preface 
to each volume, and index. Reissued in cheaper form.] 

11. The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Qnincey. With a 

preface and annotations by James Hogg. In two volumes. 
London: Swan, Sonnenschein & Co., 1890. 

12. The Posthumous Works of Thomas de Qnincey. Edited 

from the Author's MSS., with introductions and notes, by 
A. H. Japp. London : W. Heinemann. [Vol. I, Snspiria 
de Profundis, with other essays. 1891. Vol. II, Conver- 
sation and Coleridge, with other essays. 1893.] 

13. foan of Arc; The English Mail-Coach, by Thomas De Qnin- 

cey. Edited with introduction and notes, by J. M. Hart. 
New York, 1893. 



II. Biography and Criticism 

Four works are indispensable to the student of De Quincey's 
life and character. 

14. H. A. Page [A. H. Japp]. Thomas De Qnincey : His Life 
a?id Writings. With unpublished Correspondence. Lon- 
don, 1877. [2 vols, in one. New York : Scribner. This, 
though far from satisfactory, is still the standard life ; it 
contains valuable communications from De Quincey's 



Ixx INTRODUCTION 

daughters, J. Hogg, Rev. F. Jacox, Professor Masson, anc 
others ; but the material is not well digested.] 

15. D. Masson. Thomas De Quincey. English Men of Letters 

London. [New York : Harper. An excellent brief biog- 
raphy.] 

16. A. H. Japp. De Quincey Me??iorials. Being Letters atid othef 

Records^ hei'e first published. With Comimmications from 
Colefidge, the Wordsworths, Hannah More, Pivfessor Wil 
sott, and others. 2 vols. London: W. Heinemann, 1891 

17. J. Hogg. De Quincey and his Fiiends. Personal Recollec 

tions, Souvenirs, and Anecdotes [including Woodhouse' 
Conversations, Findlay's Personal Recollections, Hodgson' 
On the Genius of De Quincey, and a mass of persona 
notes from a host of friends]. London : Sampson Loa;< 
Marston & Co., 1895. 

Nearly all personal reminiscences of De Quincey have bee; 
included in the works just mentioned ; a few further cita 
tions, chiefly recent critical discussions, will suffice. 

18. A. BiRRELL. Essays about Men, Women and Books. Ne^ 

York, 1892. 

B. Chancellor. Literacy Types. New York, 1896. 
DowDEX. How De Qitincey worked. In the Saturday 
Revieiu, No. 2052, Vol. LXXIX (Feb. 23, 1895), p. 246. 
M. Ingleby. Essays. London, 1888. 
, P. Lathrop. Some Aspects of De Quincey. In the 
Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XL (November, 1877), p. 569. 

23. E. T. Mason. Personal Traits of British Authors. New 

York, 1885. [4 vols. The volume sub-tided Scott, Hogg, 
etc., contains some accounts of De Quincey not included 
by Japp or Hogg.] 

24. D. Masson. Wordsworth, Shelley, Keats, etc. London, 

1881. 

25. W. Minto. Manual of English Prose Literature. Boston, 

1889. 

26. C. PoLLiTT. De Quincey' s Editorship of the Westmoreland 

Gazette. London, i8go. 



19. 


E 


20. 


E 


21. 


C. 


22. 


G 



INTRODUCTION Ixxi 

27. G. Saintsbury. Essays in English Litei'ature, 1 780-1 860. 

First Series. New York, 1893. 

28. H. S. Salt. Literary Sketches. London, 1888. 

29. Mrs. H. Sandford. Thomas Poole and his Friends, 

2 vols. New York, 1888. 

30. L. Stephen. Hours in a Library. Vol. I. New York, 

1892. 

31. J. H. Stirling. Jen-old., Teniiyson., Afacanlay, etc. Edin- 

burgh, 1868. 



SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCEY 



THE AFFLICTION OF CHILDHOOD 

The earliest incidents in my life, which left stings in my 
memory so as to be remembered at this day, were two, 
and both before I could have completed my second year ; 
namely, ist, a remarkable dream of terrific grandeur about 
a favourite nurse, which is interesting to myself for this s 
reason — ^that it demonstrates my dreaming tendencies to 
have been constitutional, and not dependent upon lauda- 
num ; ^ and, 2dly, the fact of having connected a profound 
sense of pathos with the reappearance, very early in the 
spring, of some crocuses. This I mention as inexplicable ; lo 
for such annual resurrections of plants and flowers affect 
us only as memorials, or suggestions of some higher change, 
and therefore in connection with the idea of death ; yet 
of death I could, at that time, have had no experience 
whatever. 15 

This, however, I was speedily to acquire. My two eldest 
sisters — eldest of three then living, and also elder than 
myself — were summoned to an early death. The first 

1 It is true that in those 6.2i^?> paregoric elixir was occasionally given 
to children in colds ; and in this medicine there is a small proportion 
of laudanum. But no medicine was ever administered to any member 
of our nursery except under medical sanction ; and this, assuredly, 
would not have been obtained to the exhibition of laudanum in a case 
such as mine. For I was not more than twenty-one months old ; at 
which age the action of opium is capricious, and therefore perilous. 

I 



2 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

who died was Jane, about two years older than myself. 
She was three and a half, I one and a half, more or less by 
some trifle that I do not recollect. But death was then 
scarcely intelligible to me, and I could not so properly 
5 be said to suffer sorrow as a sad perplexity. There was 
another death in the house about the same time, namely, 
of a maternal grandmother ; but, as she had come to us for 
the express purpose of dying in her daughter's society, and 
from illness had lived perfectly secluded, our nursery circle 

lo knew her but little, and were certainly more affected by 
the death (which I witnessed) of a beautiful bird — viz., a 
kingfisher, which had been injured by an accident. With 
my sister Jane's death (though otherwise, as I have said, 
less sorrowful than perplexing) there was, however, con- 

15 nected an incident which made a most fearful impression 
upon myself, deepening my tendencies to thoughtfulness and 
abstraction beyond what would seem credible for my years. 
If there was one thing in this world from which, more than 
from any other, nature had forced me to revolt, it was bru- 

20 tality and violence. Now, a whisper arose in the family 
that a female servant, who by accident was drawn off from 
her proper duties to attend my sister Jane for a day or two, 
had on one occasion treated her harshly, if not brutally ; 
and as this ill-treatment happened within three or four 

25 days of her death, so that the occasion of it must have 
been some fretfulness in the poor child caused by her suf- 
ferings, naturally there was a sense of awe and indignation 
diffused through the family. I believe the story never 
reached my mother, and possibly it was exaggerated ; but 

30 upon me the effect was terrific. I did not often see the 
person charged with this cruelty ; but, when I did, my eyes 
sought the ground ; nor could I have borne to look her in 
the face ; not, however, in any spirit that could be called 
anger. The feeling which fell upon me was a shuddering 



THE AFFLICTION OF CHILDHOOD 3 

horror, as upon a first glimpse of the truth that I was in a 
world of evil and strife. Though born in a large town (the 
town of Manchester, even then among the largest of the 
island), I had passed the whole of my childhood, except 
for the few earliest weeks, in a rural seclusion. With three 5 
innocent little sisters for playmates, sleeping always amongst 
them, and shut up for ever in a silent garden from all knowl- 
edge of poverty, or oppression, or outrage, I had not sus- 
pected until this moment the true complexion of the world 
in which myself and my sisters were living. Henceforward 10 
the character of my thoughts changed greatly; for so repre- 
sentative are some acts, that one single case of the class 
is sufficient to throw open before you the whole theatre of 
possibilities in that direction. I never heard that the 
woman accused of this cruelty took it at all to heart, 15 
even after the ev-ent which so immediately succeeded had 
reflected upon it a more painful emphasis. But for myself, 
that incident had a lasting revolutionary power in colouring 
my estimate of life. 

So passed away from earth one of those three sisters that 20 
made up my nursery playmates; and so did my acquaint- 
ance (if such it could be called) commence with mortality. 
Yet, in fact, I knew little more of mortality than that Jane 
had disappeared. She had gone away ; but, perhaps, she 
would come back. Happy interval of heaven-born igno- 25 
ranee ! Gracious immunity of infancy from sorrow dispro- 
portioned to its strength ! I was sad for Jane's absence. 
But still in my heart I trusted that she would come again. 
Summer and winter came again — crocuses and roses ; why 
not little Jane t 3° 

Thus easily was healed, then, the first wound in my infant 
heart. Not so the second. For thou, dear, noble Elizabeth, 
around whose ample brow, as often as thy sweet countenance 
rises upon the darkness, I fancy a tia7'a of light or a gleaming 



4 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

am-eola ^ in token of thy premature intellectual grandeur 
— thou whose head, for its superb developments, was the 
astonishment of science '■^ — thou next, but after an interval 
of happy years, thou also wert summoned away from our 

5 nursery ; and the night which for me gathered upon that 
event ran after my steps far into life ; and perhaps at this 
day I resemble little for good or for ill that which else I 
should have been. Pillar of fire that didst go before me to 
guide and to quicken — pillar of darkness, when thy coun- 

o tenance was turned away to God, that didst too truly reveal 
to my dawning fears the secret shadow of death, by what 
mysterious gravitation was it that my heart had been drawn 

1 " Aureola " ; — The aureola is the name given in the " Legends of the 
Christian Samts" to that golden diadem or circlet of supernatural light 
(that glory, as it is commonly called in English) which, amongst the 
great masters of painting in Italy, surrounded the heads of Christ and 
of distinguished saints. 

2 <■<■ The astonishmejit of science " ; — Her medical attendants were 
Dr. Percival, a well-known literary physician, who had been a corre- 
spondent of Condorcet, D'Alembert, etc., and Mr. Charles White, the 
most distinguished surgeon at that time in the North of England. It 
was he who pronounced her head to be the finest in its development of 
any that he had ever seen — an assertion which, to my own knowledge, 
he repeated in after years, and with enthusiasm. That he had some 
acquaintance with the subject may be presumed from this, that, at so 
early a stage of such inquiries, he had published a work on human 
craniology, supported by measurements of heads selected from all 
varieties of the human species. Meantime, as it would grieve me that 
any trait of what might seem vanity should creep into this record, I 
will admit that my sister died of hydrocephalus; and it has been often 
supposed that the premature expansion of the intellect in cases of that 
class is altogether morbid — forced on, in fact, by the mere stimula- 
tion of the disease. I would, however, suggest, as a possibility, the 
very opposite order of relation between the disease and the intellectual 
manifestations. Not the disease may always have caused the preter- 
natural growth of the intellect ; but, inversely, this growth of the 
intellect coming on spontaneously, and outrunning the capacities of 
the physical structure, may have caused the disease. 



THE AFFLICTION OF CHILDHOOD 5 

to thine ? Could a child, six years old, place any special 
value upon intellectual forwardness ? Serene and capacious 
as my sister's mind appeared to me upon after review, was 
that a charm for stealing away the heart of an infant ? Oh 
no ! I think of it no%i> with interest, because it lends, in a s 
stranger's ear, some justification to the excess of my fond- 
ness. But then it was lost upon me ; or, if not lost, was 
perceived only through its effects. Hadst thou been an 
idiot, my sister, not the less I must have loved thee, having 
that capacious heart — overflowing, even as mine overflowed, 10 
with tenderness, strung, even as mine was strung, by the 
necessity of loving and being loved. This it was which 
crowned thee with beauty and power : — 

" Love, the holy sense, 
Best gift of God, in thee was most intense.*' 15 

That lamp of Paradise was, for myself, kindled by reflection 
from the living light which burned so steadfastly in thee ; 
and never but to thee, never again since thy departure, had 
I power or temptation, courage or desire, to utter the feel- 
ings which possessed me. For I was the shyest of children ; 20 
and, at all stages of life, a natural sense of personal dignity 
held me back from exposing the least ray of feelings which 
I was not encouraged wholly to reveal. 

It is needless to pursue, circumstantially, the course of 
that sickness which carried off my leader and companion. 25 
She (according to my recollection at this moment) was just 
as near to nine years as I to six. And perhaps this natural 
precedency in authority of years and judgment, united to 
the tender humility with which she declined to assert it, had 
been amongst the fascinations of her presence. It was upon 30 
a Sunday evening, if such conjectures can be trusted, that 
the spark of fatal fire fell upon that train of predispositions 
to a brain complaint which had hitherto slumbered within 



SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE. 

her. She had been permitted to drink tea at the house of 
a labouring man, the father of a favourite female servant. 
The sun had set when she returned, in the company of this 
servant, through meadows reeking with exhalations after a 

5 fervent day. From that day she sickened. In such cir- 
cumstances, a child, as young as myself, feels no anxieties. 
Looking upon medical men as people privileged, and natu- 
rally commissioned, to make war upon pain and sickness, I 
never had a misgiving about the result. I grieved, indeed, 

lo that my sister should lie in bed ; I grieved still more to hear 
her moan. But all this appeared to me no more than as a 
night of trouble, on which the dawn would soon arise. O ! 
moment of darkness and delirium, when the elder nurse 
awakened me from that delusion, and launched God's 

15 thunderbolt at my heart in the assurance that my sister 
MUST die. Rightly it is said of utter, utter misery, that it 
"cannot be remembered.''''^ Itself, as a remarkable thing, is 
swallowed up in its own chaos. Blank anarchy and confu- 
sion of mind fell upon me. Deaf and blind I was, as I 

20 reeled under the revelation. I wish not to recall the cir- 
cumstances of that time, when my agony was at its height, 
and hers, in another sense, was approaching. Enough it is 
to say, that all was soon over ; and the morning of that 
day had at last arrived which looked down upon her inno- 

25 cent face, sleeping the sleep from which there is no awak- 
ing, and upon me sorrowing the sorrow for which there is 
no consolation. 

On the day after my sister's death, whilst the sweet 
temple of her brain was yet unviolated by human scrutiny, 

30 I formed my own scheme for seeing her once more. Not 
for the world would I have made this known, nor have 

1 " I stood in unimaginable trance 

And agony which cannot be remember'd." 

Speech of Alhadra, in Coleridge'' s Remorse. 



THE AFFLICTION OF CHILDHOOD 7 

suffered a witness to accompany me. I had never heard of 
feelings that take the name of ''sentimental," nor dreamed 
of such a possibility. But grief, even in a child, hates the 
light, and shrinks from human eyes. The house was large 
enough to have two staircases ; and by one of these I 5 
knew that about mid-day, when all would be quiet (for the 
servants dined at one o'clock), I could steal up into her 
chamber. I imagine that it was about an hour after high 
noon when I reached the chamber-door ; it was locked, but 
the key w^as not taken away. Entering, I closed the door 10 
so softly, that, although it opened upon a hall which 
ascended through all the storeys, no echo ran along the 
silent walls. Then, turning round, I sought my sister's 
face. But the bed had been moved, and the back was now 
turned towards myself. Nothing met my eyes but one large 15 
window, wide open, through which the sun of midsummer 
at mid-day was showering down torrents of splendour. 
The weather was dry, the sky was cloudless, the blue 
depths seemed the express types of infinity ; and it was 
not possible for eye to behold, or for heart to conceive, 20 
any symbols more pathetic of life and the glory of life. 

Let me pause for one instant in approaching a remem- 
brance so affecting for my own mind, to mention that, in 
the "Opium Confessions," I endeavoured to explain the 
reason why death, other conditions remaining the same, is 25 
more profoundly affecting in summer than in other parts 
of the year — so far, at least, as it is liable to any modifica- 
tion at all from accidents of scenery or season. The rea- 
son, as I there suggested, lies in the antagonism between 
the tropical redundancy of life in summer, and the frozen 30 
sterilities of the grave. The summer we see, the grave we 
haunt with our thoughts ; the glory is around us, the dark- 
ness is within us ; and, the two coming into collision, each 
exalts the other into stronger relief. But, in my case, there 



8 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

was even a subtler reason why the summer had this intense 
power of vivifying the spectacle or the thoughts of death. 
And, recollecting it, I am struck with the truth, that far 
more of our deepest thoughts and feelings pass to us through 

5 perplex'ed combinations of concrete objects, pass to us as 
involutes (if I may coin that word) in compound experiences 
incapable of being disentangled, than ever reach us directly^ 
and in their own abstract shapes. It had happened, that 
amongst our vast nursery collection of books was the Bible 

lo illustrated with many pictures. And in long dark evenings, 
as my three sisters with myself sat by the firelight round 
the guard ^ of our nursery, no book was so much in request 
amongst us. It ruled us and swayed us as mysteriously as 
music. Our younger nurse, whom we all loved, would some- 

15 times, according to her simple powers, endeavour to explain 
what we found obscure. We, the children, were all consti- 
tutionally touched with pensiveness ; the fitful gloom and 
sudden lambencies of the room by firelight suited our 
evening state of feelings ; and they suited, also, the divine 

20 revelations of power and mysterious beauty which awed us. 
Above all, the story of a just man — man and yet not man, 
real above all things, and yet shadowy above all things — 
who had suffered the passion of death in Palestine, slept 
upon our minds like early dawn upon the waters. The 

25 nurse knew and explained to us the chief differences in 
oriental climates ; and all these differences (as it happens) 
express themselves, more or less, in varying relations to the 
great accidents and powers of summer. The cloudless sun- 
lights of Syria — those seemed to argue everlasting sum- 

30 mer ; the disciples plucking the ears of corn — that must 

1 " The guard " ; — I know not whether the word is a local one in 
this sense. What I mean is a sort of fender, four or five feet high, 
which locks up the fire from too near an approach on the part of 
children. 



THE AFFLICTION OF CHILDHOOD 9 

be summer ; but, above all, the very name of Palm Sunday 
(a festival in the English Church) troubled me like an 
anthem. "Sunday!" what was thafi That was the day 
of peace which masked another peace deeper than the 
heart of man can comprehend. " Palms ! " what were 5 
they .'' That was an equivocal word ; palms, in the sense 
of trophies, expressed the pomps of life ; palms, as a 
product of nature, expressed the pomps of summer. Yet 
still even this explanation does not suffice ; it was not 
merely by the peace and by the summer, by the deep 10 
sound of rest below all rest and of ascending glory, that 
I had been haunted. It was also because Jerusalem stood 
near to those deep images both in time and in place. 
The great event of Jerusalem was at hand when Palm 
Sunday came; and the scene of that Sunday was near in 15 
place to Jerusalem. What then was Jerusalem ? Did I 
fancy it to be the omphalos (navel) or physical centre of 
the earth ? Why should that affect me .'' Such a pretension 
had once been made for Jerusalem, and once for a Grecian 
city ; and both pretensions had become ridiculous, as the 20 
figure of the planet became known. Yes ; but if not of the 
earth, yet of mortality, for earth's tenant, Jerusalem, had 
now become the omphalos and absolute centre. Yet how ? 
There, on the contrary, it was, as we infants understood, 
that mortality had been trampled under foot. True ; but, 25 
for that very reason, there it was that mortality had opened 
its very gloomiest crater. There it was, indeed, that the 
human had risen on wings from the grave ; but, for that 
reason, there also it was that the divine had been swallowed 
up by the abyss ; the lesser star could not rise, before the 30 
greater should submit to eclipse. Summer, therefore, had 
connected itself with death, not merely as a mode of antag- 
onism, but also as a phenomenon brought into intricate 
relations with death by scriptural scenery and events. 



lo SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

Out of this digression, for the purpose of showing how 
inextricably my feelings and images of death were entangled 
with those of summer, as connected with Palestine and 
Jerusalem, let me come back to the bedchamber of my 
5 sister. From the gorgeous sunlight I turned round to the 
corpse. There lay the sweet childish figure ; there the 
angel face ; and, as people usually fancy, it was said in 
the house that no features had suffered any change. Had 
they not ? The forehead, indeed — the serene and noble 

10 forehead — that might be the same ; but the frozen eyelids, 
the darkness that seemed to steal from beneath them, the 
marble lips, the stiffening hands, laid palm to palm, as if 
repeating the supplications of closing anguish — could 
these be mistaken for life ? Had it been so, wherefore did 

15 I not spring to those heavenly lips with tears and never- 
ending kisses ? But so it was not. I stood checked for a 
moment ; awe, not fear, fell upon me ; and, whilst I stood, 
a solemn wind began to blow — the saddest that ear ever 
heard. It was a wind that might have swept the fields of 

20 mortality for a thousand centuries. Many times since, 
upon summer days, when the sun is about the hottest, I 
have remarked the same wind arising and uttering the 
same hollow, solemn, Memnonian,^ but saintly swell : it is 

'^ '•^ Memnonian'" : — For the sake of many readers, whose hearts 
may go along earnestly with a record of infant sorrow, but whose 
course of life has not allowed them much leisure for study, I pause to 
explain — that the head of Memnon, in the British Museum, that sub- 
lime head which wears xipon its lips a smile co-extensive with all time 
and all space, an Ionian smile of gracious love and Panlike mystery, 
the most diffusive and pathetically divine that the hand of man has 
created, is represented on the authority of ancient traditions to have 
uttered at sunrise, or soon after, as the sun's rays had accumulated 
heat enough to rarify the air within certain cavities in the bust, a 
solemn and dirge-like series of intonations ; the simple explanation 
being, in its general outline, this — that sonorous currents of air were 



THE AFFLICTION OF CHILDHOOD ii 

in this world the one great audible symbol of eternity. 
And three times in my life have I happened to hear the 
same sound in the same circumstances — namely, when 
standing between an open window and a dead body on a 
summer day. 

Instantly, when my ear caught this vast ^olian intona- 
tion, when my eye filled with the golden fulness of life, the 
pomps of the heavens above, or the glory of the flowers 
below, and turning when it settled upon the frost which 
overspread my sister's face, instantly a trance fell upon me. 
A vault seemed to open in the zenith of the far blue sky, a 
shaft which ran up for ever. I, in spirit, rose as if on 

produced by causing chambers of cold and heavy air to press upon 
other collections of air, warmed, and therefore rarified, and therefore 
yielding readily to the pressure of heavier air. Currents being thus 
established, by artificial arrangements of tubes, a certain succession of 
notes could be concerted and sustained. Near the Red Sea lie a chain 
of sand hills, which, by a natural system of grooves inosculating with 
each other, become vocal under changing circumstances in the posi- 
tion of the sun, etc. I knew a boy who, upon observing steadily, and 
reflecting upon a phenomenon that met him in his daily experience 
— viz., that tubes, through which a stream of water was passing, 
gave out a very different sound according to the varying slenderness 
or fulness of the current — devised an instrument that yielded a rude 
hydraulic gamut of sounds ; and, indeed, upon this simple phenomenon 
is founded the use and power of the stethoscope. For exactly as a thin 
thread of water, trickling through a leaden tube, yields a stridulous and 
plaintive sound compared with the full volume of sound corresponding 
to the full volume of water — on parity of principles, nobody will doubt 
that the current of blood pouring through the tubes of the human 
frame will utter to the learned ear, when armed with the stethoscope, 
an elaborate gamut or compass of music, recording the ravages of 
disease, or the glorious plenitudes of health, as faithfully as the cavities 
within this ancient Memnonian bust reported this mighty event of sun- 
rise to the rejoicing world of light and life — or, again, under the sad 
passion of the dying day, uttered the sweet requiem that belonged to its 
departure. 



12 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

billows that also ran up the shaft for ever ; and the billows 
seemed to pursue the throne of God ; but that also ran 
before us and fled away continually. The flight and the 
pursuit seemed to go on for ever and ever. Frost gathering 
5 frost, some Sarsar wind of death, seemed to repel me ; some 
mighty relation between God and death dimly struggled to 
evolve itself from the dreadful antagonism between them ; 
shadowy meanings even yet continue to exercise and tor- 
ment, in dreams, the deciphering oracle within me. I slept 

lo — for how long I cannot say; slowly I recovered my self- 
possession ; and, when I woke, found myself standing, as 
before, close to my sister's bed. 

I have reason to believe that a very long interval had 
elapsed during this wandering or suspension of my perfect 

15 mind. When I returned to myself, there was a foot (or I 
fancied so) on the stairs. I was alarmed ; for, if anybody 
had detected me, means would have been taken to prevent 
my coming again. Hastily, therefore, I kissed the lips that 
I should kiss no more, and slunk, like a guilty thing, with 

20 stealthy steps from the room. Thus perished the vision, 
loveliest amongst all the shows which earth has revealed 
to me ; thus mutilated was the parting which should have 
lasted for ever ; tainted thus with fear was that farewell 
sacred to love and grief, to perfect love and to grief that 

25 could not be healed. 

Ahasuerus, everlasting Jew ! ^ fable or not a fable, 
thou, when first starting on thy endless pilgrimage of woe 
— thou, when first flying through the gates of Jerusalem, 
and vainly yearning to leave the pursuing curse behind 

30 thee — couldst not more certainly in the words of Christ 
have read thy doom of endless sorrow, than I when passing 

1 " Everlasting Jew " ; — der ewige Jiuic — which is the common 
German expression for " The Wandering Jew," and sublimer even 
than our own. 



THE AFFLICTION OJ^ CHILDHOOD 



13 



for ever from my sister's room. The worm was at my 
heart ; and, I may say, the worm that could not die. Man 
is doubtless one by some subtle jiexus, some system of links, 
that we cannot perceive, extending from the new-born infant 
to the superannuated dotard : but, as regards many affec- 5 
tions and passions incident to his nature at different stages, 
he is 7iot one, but an intermitting creature, ending and 
beginning anew ; the unity of man, in this respect, is 
co-extensive only with the particular stage to which the 
passion belongs. Some passions, as that of sexual love, are 10 
celestial by one half of their origin, animal and earthly by 
the other half. These will not survive their own appro- 
priate stage. But love, which is altogether holy, like that 
between two children, is privileged to revisit by glimpses 
the silence and the darkness of declining years; and, pos- 15 
sibly, this final experience in my sister's bedroom, or some 
other in which her innocence was concerned, may rise again 
for me to illuminate the clouds of death. 

On the day following this which I have recorded, came 
a body of medical men to examine the brain, and the par- 20 
ticular nature of the complaint ; for in some of its symp- 
toms it had shown perplexing anomalies. An hour after 
the strangers had withdrawn, I crept again to the room ; 
but the door was now locked, the key had been taken away 
— -and I was shut out for ever. 25 

Then came the funeral. I, in the ceremonial character 
of 7notir7ier, was carried thither. I was put into a carriage 
with some gentlemen whom I did not know. They were 
kind and attentive to me ; but naturally they talked of 
things disconnected with the occasion, and their conver- 30 
sation was a torment. At the church, I was told to hold 
a white handkerchief to my eyes. Empty hypocrisy ! What 
need had he of masks or mockeries, whose heart died within 
him at every word that was uttered ? During that part of 



14 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE V 



an f 



the service which passed within the church, I made 
effort to attend ; but I sank back continually into my own 
solitary darkness, and I heard little consciously, except some 
fugitive strains from the sublime chapter of St. Paul, which 
5 in England is always read at burials.-^ 

Lastly came that magnificent liturgical service which the 
English Church performs at the side of the grave ; for this 
church does not forsake her dead so long as they continue 
in the upper air, but waits for her last " sweet and solemn 

lo farewell " ^ at the side of the grave. There is exposed once 
again, and for the last time, the coffin. All eyes survey 
the record of name, of sex, of age, and the day of departure 
from earth — records how shadowy ! and dropped into dark- 
ness as messages addressed to worms. Almost at the very 

15 last comes the symbolic ritual, tearing and shattering the 
heart with volleying discharges, peal after peal, from the 
fine artillery of woe. The coiBn is lowered into its home ; 
it has disappeared from all eyes but those that look down 
into the abyss of the grave. The sacristan stands ready, 

20 with his shovel of earth and stones. The priest's voice is 
heard once more — earth to earth — and immediately the 
dread rattle ascends from the hd of the cofBn ; ashes to 
ashes — and again the killing sound is heard ; dust to dust 
— and the farewell volley announces that the grave, the 

25 cofhn, the face are sealed up for ever and ever. 

Grief ! thou art classed amongst the depressing passions. 
And true it is that thou humblest to the dust, but also 



1 First Epistle to Corinthians, chap, xv., beginning at verse 20. 

2 This beautiful expression, I am pretty certain, must belong to 
Mrs. Trollope ; I read it, probably, in a tale of hers connected with 
the backwoods of America, where the absence of such a farewell must 
unspeakably aggravate the gloom at any rate belonging to a household 
separation of that eternal character occurring amongst the shadows 
of those mighty forests. 



THE AFFLICTION OF CHILDHOOD 15 

thou exaltest to the clouds. Thou shakest as with ague, 
but also thou steadiest like frost. Thou sickenest the 
heart, but also thou healest its infirmities. Among the 
very foremost of mine was morbid sensibility to shame. 
And, ten years afterwards, I used to throw my self- 5 
reproaches with regard to that infirmity into this shape — 
viz., that if I were summoned to seek aid for a perishing 
fellow-creature, and that I could obtain that aid only by 
facing a vast company of critical or sneering faces, I might, 
perhaps, shrink basely from the duty. It is true that no 10 
such case had ever actually occurred ; so that it was a mere 
romance of casuistry to tax myself with cowardice so shock- 
ing. But to feel a doubt was to feel condemnation ; and 
the crime that might have been, was in my eyes the crime 
that had been. Now, however, all was changed; and, for 15 
anything which regarded my sister's memory, in one hour 
I received a new heart. Once in Westmoreland I saw a 
case resembling it. I saw a ewe suddenly put off and abjure 
her own nature, in a service of love — yes, slough it as com- 
pletely as ever serpent sloughed his skin. Her lamb had 20 
fallen into a deep trench, from which all escape was hope- 
less without the aid of man. And to a man she advanced, 
bleating clamorously, until he followed her and rescued 
her beloved. Not less w^as the change in myself. Fifty 
thousand sneering faces would not have troubled me now 25 
in any office of tenderness to my sister's memory. Ten 
legions would not have repelled me from seeking her, if 
there had been a chance that she could be found. Mockery ! 
it was lost upon me. Laughter ! I valued it not. And when 
I was taunted insultingly with " my girlish tears," that word 30 
'■'girlish " had no sting for me, except as a verbal echo to 
the one eternal thought of my heart — that a girl was 
the sweetest thing which I, in my short life, had known 
— that a girl it was who had crowned the earth v/ith 



i6 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUIiYCEY 

beauty, and had opened to my thirst fountains of pure 
celestial love, from which, in this world, I was to drink 
no more. 

Now began to unfold themselves the consolations of 
5 solitude, those consolations which only I was destined to 
taste ; now, therefore, began to open upon me those fasci- 
nations of solitude, which, when acting as a co-agency with 
unresisted grief, end in the paradoxical result of making 
out of grief itself a luxury ; such a luxury as finally becomes 

10 a snare, overhanging life itself, and the energies of life, with 
growing menaces. All deep feelings of a chronic class agree 
in this, that they seek for solitude, and are fed by solitude. 
Deef grief, deep love, how naturally do these ally themselves 
with religious feeling! and all three — love, grief, religion 

15 — -are haunters of solitary places. Love, grief, and the mys- 
tery of devotion — what were these without solitude ? All 
day long, when it was not impossible for me to do so, I 
sought the most silent and sequestered nooks in the grounds 
about the house, or in the neighbouring fields. The awful 

20 stillness oftentimes of summer noons, when no winds were 
abroad, the appealing silence of gray or misty afternoons — 
these were fascinations as of witchcraft. Into the woods, 
into the desert air, I gazed, as if some comfort lay hid in 
them. I wearied the heavens with my inquest of beseech- 

25 ing looks. Obstinately I tormented the blue depths with my 
scrutiny, sweeping them for ever with my eyes, and search- 
ing them for one angelic face that might, perhaps, have 
permission to reveal itself for a moment. 

At this time, and under this impulse of rapacious grief, 

30 that grasped at what it could not obtain, the faculty of 
shaping images in the distance out of slight elements, and 
grouping them after the yearnings of the heart, grew upon 
me in morbid excess. And I recall at the present moment 
one instance of that sort, which may show how merely 



THE AFFLICTION OF CHILDHOOD 



7 



shadows, or a gleam of brightness, or nothing at all, could 
furnish a sufficient basis for this creative faculty. 

On Sunday mornings I went with the rest of my family 
to church : it was a church on the ancient model of Eng- 
land, having aisles, galleries,^ organ, all things ancient and 5 
venerable, and the proportions majestic. Here, whilst the 
congregation knelt through the long litany, as often as we 
came to that passage, so beautiful amongst many that are 
so, where God is supplicated on behalf of " all sick persons 
and young children," and that he would "show his pity 10 
upon all prisoners and captives," I wept in secret; and 
raising my streaming eyes to the upper windows of the 
galleries, saw, on days when the sun was shining, a spec- 
tacle as affecting as ever prophet can have beheld. The 
sides of the windows were rich with storied glass; through 15 
the deep purples and crimsons streamed the golden light ; 
emblazonries of heavenly illumination (from the sun) min- 
gling with the earthly emblazonries (from art and its gorgeous 
colouring) of what is grandest in man. There were the apos- 
tles that had trampled upon earth, and the glories of earth, 20 
out of celestial love to man. There were the martyrs that 
had borne witness to the truth through flames, through tor- 
ments, and through armies of fierce, insulting faces. There 
were the saints who, under intolerable pangs, had glorified 
God by meek submission to his will. And all the time 25 
whilst this tumult of sublime memorials held on as the 
deep chords from some accompaniment in the bass, 1 
saw through the wide central field of the window, where 
the glass was z^;zcoloured, white, fleecy clouds sailing over 

1 " Galleries " ; — These, though condemned on some grounds by the 
restorers of authentic church architecture, have, nevertheless, this one 
advantage — that, when the height of a church is that dimension which 
most of all expresses its sacred character, galleries expound and 
interpret that height. 



1 8 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

the azure depths of the sky ; were it but a fragment or a 
hint of such a cloud, immediately under the flash of my 
sorrow-haunted eye, it grew and shaped itself into visions 
of beds with white lawny curtains ; and in the beds lay 

5 sick children, dying children, that were tossing in anguish, 
and weeping clamorously for death. God, for some mys- 
terious reason, could not suddenly release them from their 
pain ; but he suffered the beds, as it seemed, to rise slowly 
through the clouds ; slowly the beds ascended into the 

10 chambers of the air ; slowly also his arms descended from 
the heavens, that he and his young children, whom in 
Palestine, once and for ever, he had blessed, though they 
must pass slowly through the dreadful chasm of separa- 
tion, might yet meet the sooner. These visions were self- 

15 sustained. These visions needed not that any sound should 
speak to me, or music mould my feelings. The hint from 
the litany, the fragment from the clouds — those and the 
storied windows were sufficient. But not the less the blare 
of the tumultuous organ wrought its own separate creations. 

20 And oftentimes in anthems, when the mighty instrument 
threw its vast columns of sound, fierce yet melodious, over 
the voices of the choir — high in arches, when it seemed to 
rise, surmounting and overriding the strife of the vocal 
parts, and gathering by strong coercion the total storm 

25 into unity — sometimes I seemed to rise and walk trium- 
phantly upon those clouds which, but a moment before, I 
had looked up to as mementos of prostrate sorrow; yes, 
sometimes under the transfigurations of music, felt of grief 
itself as of a fiery chariot for mounting victoriously above 

30 the causes of grief. 

God speaks to children, also, in dreams, and by the 
oracles that lurk in darkness. But in solitude, above all 
things, when made vocal to the meditative heart by the 
truths and services of a national church, God holds with 



THE AFFLICTION OF CHILDHOOD 19 

children "communion undisturbed." Solitude, though it 
may be silent as light, is, like light, the mightiest of 
agencies ; for solitude is essential to man. All men come 
into this world alone ; all leave it aIo7ie. Even a little child 
has a dread, whispering consciousness, that, if he should 5 
be summoned to travel into God's presence, no gentle 
nurse will be allowed to lead him by the hand, nor mother 
to carry him in her arms, nor little sister to share his trepi- 
dations. King and priest, warrior and maiden, philosopher 
and child, all must walk those mighty galleries alone. The 10 
solitude, therefore, which in this world appals or fascinates 
a child's heart, is but the echo of a far deeper solitude, 
through which already he has passed, and of another soli- 
tude, deeper still, through which he has to pass : reflex of 
one solitude — prefiguration of another. 15 

Oh, burden of solitude, that cleavest to man through 
every stage of his being ! in his birth, which has been — in 
his life, which is — in his death, which shall be — mighty 
and essential solitude ! that wast, and art, and art to be ; 
thou broodest, like the Spirit of God moving upon the sur- 20 
face of the deeps, over every heart that sleeps in the nur- 
series of Christendom. Like the vast laboratory of the air, 
which, seeming to be nothing, or less than the shadow of 
a shade, hides within itself the principles of all things, soli- 
tude for the meditating child is the Agrippa's mirror of the 25 
unseen universe. Deep is the solitude of millions who, with 
hearts welling forth love, have none to love them. Deep 
is the solitude of those who, under secret griefs, have none 
to pity them. Deep is the solitude of those who, fighting 
with doubts or darkness, have none to counsel them. But 30 
deeper than the deepest of these solitudes is that which 
broods over childhood under the passion of sorrow — bring- 
ing before it, at intervals, the final solitude which watches 
for it, and is waiting for it within the gates of death. Oh, 



2 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCEY 

mighty and essential solitude, that wast, and art, and art 
to be ! thy kingdom is made perfect in the grave ; but even 
over those that keep watch outside the grave, like myself, 
an infant of six years old, thou stretchest out a sceptre of 
5 fascination. 



INTRODUCTION TO THE WORLD OF STRIFE 

So, then, one chapter in my life had finished. Already, 
before the completion of my sixth year, this first chapter had 
run its circle, had rendered up its music to the final chord 
— might seem even, like ripe fruit from a tree, to have 
detached itself for ever from all the rest of the arras that 5 
was shaping itself within my loom of life. No Eden of 
lakes and forest-lawns, such as the mirage suddenly evokes 
in Arabian sands — no pageant of air-built battlements and 
towers, that ever burned in dream-like silence amongst the| 
vapours of summer sunsets, mocking and repeating with 10 
celestial pencil " the fuming vanities of earth " — could 
leave behind it the mixed impression of so much truth com- 
bined with so much absolute delusion. Truest of all things 
it seemed by the excess of that happiness which it had sus- 
tained : most fraudulent it seemed of all things, when looked 15 
back upon as some mysterious parenthesis in the current of 
life, "self-withdrawn into a wondrous depth," hurrying as 
if with headlong malice to extinction, and alienated by 
every feature from the new aspects of life. that seemed to 
await me. Were it not in the bitter corrosion of heart that 20 
I was called upon to face, I should have carried over to the 
present no connecting link whatever from the past. Mere 
reality in this fretting it was, and the undeniableness of its 
too potent remembrances, that forbade me to regard this 
burnt-out inaugural chapter of my life as no chapter at all, 25 
but a pure exhalation of dreams. Misery is a guarantee of 
truth too substantial to be refused : else, by its determinate 



2 2 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

evanescence, the total experience would have worn the 
character of a fantastic illusion. 
\,rt*^ Well it was for me at this period, if well it were for me 
to live at all, that from any continued contemplation of my 
5 misery I was forced to wean myself, and suddenly to assume 
the harness of life. Else, under the morbid languishing of 
grief, and of what the Romans called desiderium (the yearn- 
ing too obstinate after one irrecoverable face), too probably 
I should have pined away into an early grave. Harsh was 

10 my awaking; but the rough febrifuge which this awak- 
ing administered broke the strength of my sickly reveries 
through a period of more than two years ; by which time, 
under the natural expansion of my bodily strength, the 
danger had passed over. 

15 In the first chapter I have rendered solemn thanks for 
having been trained amongst the gentlest of sisters, and not 
under "horrid pugilistic brothers." Meantime, one such 
brother I had : senior by much to myself, and the stormiest 
of his class ; him I will immediately present to the reader ; 

20 for up to this point of my narrative he may be described as 

ia stranger even to myself. Odd as it sounds, I had at this 
time both a brother and a father, neither of whom would 
have been able to challenge me as a relative, nor I him^ had 
we happened to meet on the public roads. 
25 In my father's case, this arose from the accident of his 
having lived abroad for a space that, measured against my 
life, was a very long one. First, he lived for months in 
Portugal, at Lisbon, and at Cintra ; next in Madeira ; then 
in the West Indies ; sometimes in Jamaica, sometimes in St. 
30 Kitt's ; courting the supposed benefit of hot climates in his 
complaint of pulmonary consumption. He had, indeed, 
repeatedly returned to England, and met my mother at 
watering-places on the south coast of Devonshire, etc. 
But I, as a younger child, had not been one of the party 



INTRODUCTION TO THE WO RID OF STRIFE 23 

selected for such excursions from home. And now, at last, 
when all had proved unavailing, he was coming home to die 
amongst his family, in his thirty-ninth year. My mother had 
gone to await his arrival at the port (whatever port) to which 
the West India packet should bring him ; and amongst the 5 
deepest recollections which I connect with that period, is 
one derived from the night of his arrival at Greenhay. 

It was a summer evening of unusual solemnity. The 
servants, and four of us children, were gathered for hours, 
on the lawn before the house, listening for the sound of 10 
wheels. Sunset came — nine, ten, eleven o'clock, and nearly 
another hour had passed — without a warning sound ; for 
Greenhay, being so solitary a house, formed a terminus ad 
quejn, beyond which was nothing but a cluster of cottages, 
composing the little hamlet of Greenhill; so that any sound of 15 
wheels coming from the winding lane which then connected 
us with the Rusholme Road carried with it, of necessity, a 
warning summons to prepare for visitors at Greenhay. No 
such summons had yet reached us ; it was nearly midnight ; 
and, for the last time, it was determined that we should 20 
move in a body out of the grounds, on the chance of meet- 
ing the travelling party, if, at so late an hour, it could yet 
be expected to arrive. In fact, to our general surprise, we 
met it almost immediately, but coming at so slow a pace, 
that the fall of the horses' feet was not audible until we 25 
were close upon them. I mention the case for the sake 
of the undying impressions which connected themselves 
with the circumstances. The first notice of the approach 
was the sudden emerging of horses' heads from the deep 
gloom of the shady lane ; the next was the mass of white 30 
pillows against which the dying patient was reclining. 
The hearse-like pace at which the carriage moved recalled 
the overwhelming spectacle of that funeral which had so 
lately formed part in the most memorable event of my 



2 4 SELECTIONS FROM BE QUINCE V 

life. But these elements of awe, that might at any rate 
have struck forcibly upon the mind of a child, were for 
me, in my condition of morbid nervousness, raised into 
abiding grandeur by the antecedent experiences of that 
5 particular summer night. The listening for hours to the 
sounds from horses' hoofs upon distant roads^ rising and 
falling, caught and lost, upon the gentle undulation of such 
fitful airs as might be stirring — the peculiar solemnity of the 
hours succeeding to sunset — the glory of the dying day — 

10 the gorgeousness which, by description, so well I knew of 
sunset in those West Indian islands from which my father 
was returning — the knowledge that he returned only to die 
— the almighty pomp in which this great idea of Death 
apparelled itself to my young sorrowing heart — the corre- 

15 sponding pomp in which the antagonistic idea, not less 
mysterious, of life, rose, as if on wings, amidst tropic 
glories and floral pageantries, that seemed even t?iore sol- 
emn and pathetic than the vapoury plumes and trophies 
of mortality — all this chorus of restless images, or of sug- 

20 gestive thoughts, gave to my father's return, which else 
had been fitted only to interpose one transitory red-letter 
day in the calendar of a child, the shadowy power of an 
ineffaceable agency among my dreams. This, indeed, was 
the one sole memorial which restores my father's image to 

25 me as a personal reality. Otherwise, he would have been 
for me a bare noniinis iimh-a. He languished, indeed, for 
weeks upon a sofa ; and during that interval, it happened 
naturally, from my repose of manners, that I was a privi- 
leged visitor to him throughout his waking hours. I 

30 was also present at his bedside in the closing hour of 
his lif^, which exhaled quietly, amidst snatches of delirious 
conversation with some imaginary visitors. 

My brother was a stranger from causes quite as little to 
be foreseen, but seeming quite as natural after they had 



INTRODUCTION TO THE WORLD OF STRIFE 25 

really occurred. In an early stage of his career, he had 
been found wholly unmanageable. His genius for mischief^^ ^.^4!^ 
amounted to inspiration : it was a divine afflatus which ' 
drove him in that direction ; and such was his capacity for 
riding in whirlwinds and directing storms, that he made it 5 
his trade to create them, as a vet^eA-T^yepera Zevs, a cloud- 
compelling Jove, in order that he 77iight direct them. For 
this, and other reasons, he had been sent to the Grammar 
School of Louth, in Lincolnshire — one of those many old 
classic institutions which form the peculiar^ g^ory of Eng- 10 
land. To box, and to box under the severest restraint 
of honourable laws, was in those days a mere necessity of 
schoolboy life at public schools ; and hence the superior 
manliness, generosity, and self-control, of those generally 
who had benefited by such discipline — so systematically 15 
hostile to all meanness, pusillanimity, or indirectness. 
Cowper, in his "Tyrocinium," is far from doing justice 
to our great public schools. Himself disqualified, by 
delicacy of temperament, for reaping the benefits from 
such a warfare, and having suffered too much in his 20 
own Westminster experience, he could not judge them 
from an impartial station ; but I, though ill enough 
adapted to an atmosphere so stormy, yet having tried 
both classes of schools, public and private, am com- 
pelled in mere conscience to give my vote (and if I 25 
had a thousand votes, to give all my votes) for the 
former. 

1 " Peculiar " ; — viz., as cndoived foundations to which those resort 
who are rich and pay, and those also who, being poor, cannot pay, or 
cannot pay so much. This most honourable distinction amongst the 
services of England from ancient times to the interests of education — 
a service absolutely unapproached by any one nation of Christendom — 
is amongst the foremost cases of that remarkable class which make 
England, while often the most aristocratic, yet also, for many noble 
purposes, the most democratic of lands. 



2 6 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

Fresh from such a training as this, and at a time when 

/ his additional five or six years availed nearly to make his 
age the double of mine, my brother very naturally despised 
i me ; and, from his exceeding frankness, he took no pains to 
5 conceal that he did. Why should he ? Who was it that 
could have a right to feel aggrieved by his contempt ? 
Who, if not myself ? But it happened, on the contrary, 
that I had a perfect craze for being despised. I doted on 
it ; and considered contempt a sort of luxury that I was in 

10 continual fear of losing. Why not ? Wherefore should any 
rational person shrink from contempt, if it happen to form 
the tenure by which he holds his repose in life? The 
cases, which are cited from comedy, of such a yearning 
after contempt, stand upon a footing altogether different : 

15 the?'e the contempt is wooed as a serviceable ally and tool 
of religious hypocrisy. But, to me, at that era of life, it 
formed the main guarantee of an unmolested repose : and 
security there was not, on any lower terms, for the late?itis 
semita vitce. The slightest approach to any favourable 

20 construction of my intellectual pretensions alarmed me 
beyond measure ; because it pledged me in a manner 
with the hearer to support this first attempt by a second, 
by a third, by a fourth — O heavens ! there is no saying 
how far the horrid man might go in his unreasonable 

25 demands upon me. I groaned under the weight of his 
expectations ; and, if I laid but the first round of such a 
staircase, why, then, I saw in vision a vast Jacob's ladder 
towering upwards to the clouds, mile after mile, league after 
league ; and myself running up and down this ladder, like 

30 any fatigue party of Irish hodmen, to the top of any Babel 
which my wretched admirer might choose to build. But I 
nipped the abominable system of extortion in the very bud, 
by refusing to take the first step. The man could have no 
pretence, you know, for expecting me to climb the third or 



INTRODUCTION TO THE WORLD OF STRIFE 27 

fourth round, when I had seemed quite unequal to the first. 
Professing the most absolute bankruptcy from the very- 
beginning, giving the man no sort of hope that I would 
pay even one farthing in the pound, I never could be made 
miserable by unknown responsibilities. 5 

Still, with all this passion for being despised, which was 
so essential to my peace of mind, I found at times an alti- 
tude — a starry altitude — in the station of contempt for me 
assumed by my brother that nettled me. Sometimes, indeed, 
the mere necessities of dispute carried me, before I was 10 
aware of my own imprudence, so far up the staircase of 
Babel, that my brother was shaken for a moment in the 
infinity of his contempt : and, before long, when my superi- 
ority in some bookish accomplishments displayed itself, by 
results that could not be entirely dissembled, mere foolish 15 
human nature forced me into some trifle of exultation at 
these retributory triumphs. But more often I was disposed 
to grieve over them. They tended to shake that solid 
foundation of utter despicableness upon which I relied so 
much for my freedom from anxiety ; and, therefore, upon 20 
the whole, it was satisfactory to my mind that my brother's 
opinion of me, after any little transient oscillation, gravitated 
determinately back towards that settled contempt which had 
been the result of his original inquest. The pillars of Her- 
cules upon which rested the vast edifice of his scorn were 25 
these two — ist, my physics : he denounced me for effemi- 
nacy; 2d, he assumed, and even postulated as a datum^ which 
I myself could never have the face to refuse, my general 
idiocy. Physically, therefore, and intellectually, he looked 
upon me as below notice ; but, morally, he assured me that 30 
he would give me a written character of the very best 
description, whenever I chose to apply for it. "You're 
honest," he said; "you're willing, though lazy; you would 
pull, if you had the strength of a flea; and, though a 



28 SELECTIOXS FROM BE QU/NCEY 

monstrous coward, you don't run away." My own demurs 
to these harsh judgments were not so many as they might 
have been. The idiocy I confessed ; because, though posi- 
tive that I was not uniformly an idiot, I felt inclined to think 

5 that, in a majority of cases, I really mas ; and there were 
more reasons for thinking so than the reader is yet aware 
of. But, as to the effeminacy, I denied it in toto ; and 
with good reason, as will be seen. Neither did my brother 
pretend to have any experimental proofs of it. The ground 

10 he went upon was a mere a priori one — viz., that I had 
always been tied to the apron-string of women or girls ; 
which amounted at most to this — that, by training and 
the natural tendency of circumstances, I ought to be effemi- 
nate : that is, there was reason to expect beforehand that 

15 I should be so ; but, then, the more merit in me, if, in spite 
of such reasonable presumptions, I really were 7iot. In fact, 
my brother soon learned, by a daily experience, how entirely 
he might depend upon me for carrying out the most auda- 
cious of his own warlike plans ; such plans it is true that I 

20 abominated ; but that made no difference in the fidelity 
with which I tried to fulfil them. 

This eldest brother of mine was in all respects a remark- 
able boy. Haughty he was, aspiring, immeasurably active ; 
fertile in resources as Robinson Crusoe ; but also full of 

25 quarrel as it is possible to imagine; and, in default of any 
other opponent, he would have fastened a quarrel upon his 
own shadow for presuming to run before him when going 
westwards in the morning, whereas, in all reason, a shadow, 
like a dutiful child, ought to keep deferentially in rear of 

30 that majestic substance which is the author of its existence. 
Books he detested, one and all, excepting only such as he 
happened to write himself. And these were not a few. On 
all subjects known to man, from the Thirty-nine Articles of 
our English Church, down to pyrotechnics, legerdemain, 



INTRODUCTION TO THE WORLD OF STRIFE 29 

magic, both black and white, thaumaturgy, and necromancy, 
he favoured the world (which world w^as the nursery where 
I lived amongst my sisters) wdth his select opinions. On 
this last subject especially — of necromancy — he was very 
great ; witness his profound work, though but a fragment, 5 
and, unfortunately, long since departed to the bosom of 
Cinderella, entitled, " How to raise a Ghost ; and when 
you've got him down, how to keep him down." To which 
work he assured us, that some most learned and enormous 
man, whose name was a foot and a half long, had promised 10 
him an appendix ; which appendix treated of the Red Sea 
and Solomon's signet-ring ; with forms of 77iitti7nus for ghosts 
that might be refractory ; and probably a riot act, for any 
emeute amongst ghosts inclined to raise barricades ; since 
he often thrilled our young hearts by supposing the case 15 
(not at all unlikely, he affirmed), that a federation, a solemn 
league and conspiracy, might take place amongst the infinite 
generations of ghosts against the single generation of men 
at any one time composing the garrison of earth. The 
Roman phrase for expressing that a man had died — viz., 20 
'^ Abiit ad pliires'' (He has gone over to the majority) — 
my brother explained to us ; and we easily comprehended 
that any one generation of the living human race, even if 
combined, and acting in concert, must be in a frightful 
minority, by comparison with all the incalculable genera- 25 
tions that had trod this earth before us. The Parliament 
of living men. Lords and Commons united, what a miserable 
array against the Upper and Lower House composing the 
Parliament of ghosts ! Perhaps the Pre- Adamites would 
constitute one wing in such a ghostly army. My brother, 30 
dying in his sixteenth year, was far enough from seeing or 
foreseeing Waterloo ; else he might have illustrated this 
dreadful duel of the living human race with its ghostly pred- 
ecessors, by the awful apparition which at three o'clock 



30 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

in the afternoon, on the i8th of June, 1815, the mighty con- 
test at Waterloo must have assumed to eyes that watched 
over the trembling interests of man. The English army, 
about that time in the great agony of its strife, was thrown 
5 into squares ; and under that arrangement, which con- 
densed and contracted its apparent numbers within a few 
black geometrical diagrams, how frightfully narrow — how 
spectral did its slender quadrangles appear at a distance, 
to any philosophic spectators that knew the amount of 

10 human interests confided to that army, and the hopes for 
Christendom that even were trembling in the balance ! 
Such a disproportion, it seems, might exist, in the case of 
a ghostly war, between the harvest of possible results and 
the slender band of reapers that were to gather it. And 

15 there was even a worse peril than any analogous one that 
has been p7'oved to exist at Waterloo. A British surgeon, 
indeed, in a work of two octavo volumes, has endeavoured 
to show that a conspiracy was traced at Waterloo, between 
two or three foreign regiments, for kindling a panic in the 

20 heat of the battle, by flight, and by a sustained blowing up 
of tumbrils, under the miserable purpose of shaking the 
British steadiness. But the evidences are not clear ; 
whereas my brother insisted that the presence of sham 
men, distributed extensively amongst the human race, 

25 and meditating treason against us all, had been demon- 
strated to the satisfaction of all true philosophers. Who 
were these shams and make-believe men ? They were, 
in fact, people that had been dead for centuries, but 
that, for reasons best known to themselves, had returned 

30 to this upper earth, walked about amongst us, and were 
undistinguishable, except by the most learned of necro- 
mancers, from authentic men of flesh and blood. I 
mention this for the sake of illustrating the fact, of 
which the reader will find a singular instance in the 



INTRODUCTION TO THE WORLD OF STRIFE 31 

foot-note attached, that the; same crazes are everlastingly 
revolving upon men.^ 

This hypothesis, however, like a thousand others, when 
it happened that they engaged no durable sympathy from 
his nursery audience, he did not pursue. For some time 5 
he turned his thoughts to philosophy, and read lectures to 
us every night upon some branch or other of physics. 
This undertaking arose from some one of us envying or 
admiring flies for their power of walking upon the ceiling. 
"Pooh!" he said, "they are impostors; they pretend to 10 
do it, but they can't do it as it ought to be done. Ah ! 
you should see me standing upright on the ceiling, with 
my head downwards, for half an hour together, meditating 
profoundly." My sister Mary remarked, that we should all 
be very glad to see him in that position. "If that's the 15 

1 Five years ago, during the carnival of universal anarchy equally 
amongst doers and thinkers, a closely-printed pamphlet v^ras published 
with this title, " A New Revelation ; or the Communion of the Incar- 
nate Dead with the Unconscious Living. Important Fact, without 
trifling Fiction, by HiM." I have not the pleasure of knowing Him ; 
but certainly I must concede to Him, that he writes like a man of 
extreme sobriety, upon his extravagant theme. He is angry with 
Swedenborg, as might be expected, for his chimeras; some of which, 
however, of late years have signally altered their aspect ; but as to 
Him, there is no chance that he should be occupied with chimeras, 
because (p. 6) "he has met with some who have acknowledged the 
fact of their having come from the dead" — habes confitentetn renm. 
Few, however, are endowed with so much candour ; and, in particular, 
for the honour of literature, it grieves me to find, by p. 10, that the 
largest number of these shams, and perhaps the most uncandid, are to 
be looked for amongst " publishers and printers," of whom, it seems, 
"the great majority" are mere forgeries; a very few speak frankly 
about the matter, and say they don't care who knows it, which, to 
my thinking, is impudence ; but by far the larger section doggedly 
deny it, and call a policeman, if you persist in charging them with 
being shams. Some differences there are between my brother and 
Him, but in the great outline of their views they coincide. 



32 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCEY 

case," he replied, "it's very well that all is ready, except as 
to a strap or two." Being an excellent skater, he had first 
imagined that, if held up until he had started, he might 
then, by taking a bold sweep ahead, keep himself in posi- 
5 tion through the continued impetus of skating. But this 
he found not to answer ; because, as he observed, " the 
friction was too retarding from the plaster of Paris ; but 
the case would be very different if the ceiling were coated 
with ice." As it was 7iot^ he changed his plan. The true 

lo secret, he now discovered, was this : he would consider 
himself in the light of a humming-top ; he would make an 
apparatus (and he made it) for having himself launched, 
like a top, upon the ceiling, and regularly spun. Then the 
vertiginous motion of the human top would overpower the 

15 force of gravitation. He should, of course, spin upon his 
own axis, and sleep upon his own axis — perhaps he might 
even dream upon it ; and he laughed at " those scoundrels, 
the flies," that never improved in their pretended art, nor 
made anything of it. The principle was now discovered ; 

20 "and, of course," he said, "if a man can keep it up for 
five minutes, what's to hinder him from doing so for five 
months ? " " Certainly, nothing that I can think of," was 
the reply of my sister, whose scepticism, in fact, had not 
settled upon the five months, but altogether upon the five 

25 minutes. The apparatus for spinning him, however, per- 
haps from its complexity, would not work ; a fact evidently 
owing to the stupidity of the gardener. On reconsidering 
the subject, he announced, to the disappointment of some 
amongst us, that, although the physical discovery was now 

30 complete, he saw a moral difficulty. It was not a huinnwig- 
top that was required, but a peg-to^. Now, this, in order 
to keep up the vertigo at full stretch, without which, to a 
certainty, gravitation would prove too much for hin), needed 
to be whipped incessantly. But that was precisely what a 



INTRODUCTIOX TO THE WORLD OF STRIFE 2>1> 

gentleman ought not to tolerate ; to be scourged uninter- 
mittingly on the legs by any grub of a gardener, unless it 
were Father Adam himself, was a tljing he could not bring 
his mind to face. However, as some compensation, he pro- 
posed to improve the art of flying, which was, as everybody 5 
must acknowledge, in a condition disgraceful to civilised 
society. As he had made many a fire balloon, and had 
succeeded in some attempts at bringing down cats by /^r^- 
c/iittes, it was not very difficult to fly downwards from mod- 
erate elevations. But, as he was reproached by my sister 10 
for never flying back again, which, however, was a far 
different thing, and not even attempted by the philosopher 
in " Rasselas " (for 

" Revocare gradum, et siiperas evadere ad auras, 
Hie labor, hoc opus est '*), 15 

he refused, under such poor encouragement, to try his winged 
parachutes any more, either "aloft or alow," till he had 
thoroughly studied Bishop Wilkins ^ on the art of translat- 
ing right reverend gentlemen to the moon ; and, in the 
meantime, he resumed his general lectures on physics. From 20 
these, however, he was speedily driven, or one might say 
shelled out, by a concerted assault of my sister Mary's. He 

^'■'■Bishop IVilkins'''' : — Dr. W., Bishop of Chester, in the reign of 
Charles II, notoriously wrote a book on the possibility of a voyage to 
the moon, which, in a bishop, would be called a translation to the moon, 
and perhaps it was his name in combination with his book that sug- 
gested the " Adventures of Peter Wilkins." It is unfair, however, to 
mention him in connection with that single one of his works which 
announces an extravagant purpose. He was really a scientific man, and 
already in the time of Cromwell (about 1656) had projected that Royal 
Society of London which was afterwards realised and presided over 
by Isaac Barrow and Isaac Newton. He was also a learned man, but 
still with a vein of romance about him, as may be seen in his most 
elaborate w^ork — "The Essay towards a Philosophic or Universal 
Language." 



34 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

had been in the habit of lowering the pitch of his lectures 
with ostentatious condescension to the presumed level of our 
poor understandings. This superciliousness annoyed my 
sister ; and accordingly, with the help of two young female 
5 visitors, and my next younger brother — in subsequent 
times a little middy on board many a ship of H.M., and 
the most predestined rebel upon earth against all assump- 
tions, small or great, of superiority — she arranged a mutiny, 
that had the unexpected effect of suddenly extinguishing 

10 the lectures for ever. He had happened to say, what was 
no unusual thing with him, that he flattered himself he 
had made the point under discussion tolerably clear ; 
"clear," he added, bowing round the half^circle of us, the 
audience, " to the meanest of capacities " ; and then he 

15 repeated, sonorously, "clear to the most excruciatingly 
mean of capacities." Upon which a voice, a female voice 
— but whose voice, in the tumult that followed, I did not 
distinguish — retorted, " No, you haven't ; it's as dark as 
sin " ; and then, without a moment's interval, a second 

20 voice exclaimed, " Dark as night " ; then came my younger 
brother's insurrectionary yell, " Dark as midnight " ; then 
another female voice chimed in melodiously, " Dark as 
pitch " ; and so the peal continued to come round like a 
catch, the whole being so well concerted, and the rolling 

25 fire so well sustained, that it was impossible to make head 
against it ; whilst the abruptness of the interruption gave 
to it the protecting character of an oral "round-robin," it 
being impossible to challenge any one in particular as the 
ringleader. Burke's phrase of "the swinish multitude," 

30 applied to mobs, was then in everybody's mouth ; and, 
accordingly, after my brother had recovered from his first 
astonishment at this audacious mutiny, he made us sev- 
eral sweeping bows, that looked very much like tentative 
rehearsals of a sweeping fusillade^ and then addressed us 



INTRODUCTION TO THE WORLD OF STRIFE 35 

in a very brief speech, of which we could distinguish the 
words pearls and sivinish ynnltifude, but uttered in a very low 
key, perhaps out of some lurking consideration for the two 
young strangers. We all laughed in chorus at this parting 
salute ; my brother himself condescended at last to join 5 
us ; but there ended the course of lectures on natural 
philosophy. 

As it was impossible, however, that he should remain 
quiet, he announced to us, that for the rest of his life he 
meant to dedicate himself to the intense cultivation of the 10 
tragic drama. He got to work instantly ; and very soon he 
had composed the first act of his " Sultan Selim " ; but, in 
defiance of the metre, he soon changed the title to " Sultan 
Amurath," considering that a much fiercer name, more be- 
whiskered and beturbaned. It was no part of his intention 15 
that we should sit lolling on chairs like ladies and gentlemen 
that had paid opera prices for private boxes. He expected 
every one of us, he said, to pull an oar. We were to act the 
tragedy. But, in fact, we had many oars to pull. There 
were so many characters, that each of us took four at the 20 
least, and the future middy had six. He, this wicked little 
middy,^ caused the greatest affliction to Sultan Amurath, 
forcing him to order the amputation of his head six several 
times (that is, once in every one of his six parts) during the 
first act. In reality, the sultan, though otherwise a decent 25 
man, was too bloody. What by the bowstring, and what by 
the scimitar, he had so thinned the population with which 

1 " Middy " ; — I call him so simply to avoid confusion, and by way 
of anticipation ; else he was too young at this time to serve in the 
navy. Afterwards he did so for many years, and saw every variety of 
service in every class of ships belonging to our navy. At one time, 
when yet a boy, he was captured by pirates, and compelled to sail with 
them ; and the end of his adventurous career was, that for many a year 
he has been lying at the bottom of the Atlantic. 



36 SELECTIONS EROM DE QUINCE Y 

he commenced business, that scarcely any of the characters 
remained alive at the end of act the first. Sultan Amurath 
found himself in an awkward situation. Large arrears of 
work remained, and hardly anybody to do it but the sultan 

5 himself. In composing act the second, the author had to 
proceed like Deucalion and Pyrrha,and to create an entirely 
new generation. Apparently this young generation, that 
ought to have been so good, took no warning by what had 
happened to their ancestors in act the first ; one must con- 

10 elude that they were quite as wicked, since the poor sultan 
had found himself reduced to order them all for execution 
in the course of this act the second. To the brazen age had 
succeeded an iron age, and the prospects were becoming 
sadder and sadder as the tragedy advanced. But here the 

15 author began to hesitate. He felt it hard to resist the 
instinct of carnage. And was it right to do so .? Which of 
the felons whom he had cut off prematurely could pretend 
that a court of appeal would have reversed his sentence ? 
But the consequences were distressing. A new set of charac- 

20 ters in every act brought with it the necessity of a new 
plot ; for people could not succeed to the arrears of old 
actions, or inherit ancient motives, like a landed estate. 
Five crops, in fact, must be taken off the ground in each 
separate tragedy, amounting, in short, to five tragedies 

25 involved in one. 

Such, according to the rapid sketch which at this moment 
my memory furnishes, was the brother who now first laid 
open to me the gates of war. The occasion was this. He 
had resented, with a shower of stones, an affront offered to 

30 us by an individual boy, belonging to a cotton factory ; for 
more than two years afterwards this became the teterrima 
causa of a skirmish or a battle as often as we passed the 
factory ; and, unfortunately, that was twice a day on every 
day, except Sunday. Our situation in respect to the enemy 



INTKODUCriON TO THE WORLD OF STRIFE 37 

was as follows : — Greenhay, a country-house, newly built 
by my father, at that time was a clear mile from the 
outskirts of Manchester ; but in after years, Manchester, 
throwing out the tentacula of its vast expansions, abso- 
lutely enveloped Greenhay ; and, for anything I know, the 5 
grounds and gardens which then insulated the house may 
have long disappeared. Being a modest mansion, which 
(including hot walls, offices, and gardener's house) had cost 
only six thousand pounds, I do not know how it should 
have risen to the distinction of giving name to a region of 10 
that great tow^n ; however, it has done so ; ^ and at this 
time, therefore, after changes so great, it will be difficult 
for the habitue of that region to understand how my brother 
and myself could have a solitary road to traverse between 
Greenhay and Princess Street, then the termination, on 15 
that side, of Manchester. But so it was. Oxford Street^ 
like its namesake in London, was then called the Oxford 
Road ; and during the currency of our acquaintance with it, 
arose the first three houses in its neighbourhood ; of which 
the third was built for the Rev. S. H., one of our guardians, 20 
for whom his friends had also built the church of St. Peter's 
— not a bowshot from the house. At present, however, he 
resided in Salford, nearly two miles from Greenhay ; and 
to him we went over daily, for the benefit of his classical 
instructions. One sole cotton factory had then risen along 25 
the line of Oxford Street ; and this was close to a bridge, 
which also was a new creation ; for previously all passen- 
gers to Manchester went round by Garrat. This factory 
became to us the officifia getitium^ from which swarmed forth 
those Goths and Vandals that continually threatened our 30 

1 " Green/^^/j-," with a slight variation in the spelHng, is the name 
given to that district, of which Greenhay formed the original nucleus. 
Probably, it was the solitary situation of the house which (failing any 
other grounds of denomination) raised it to this privilege. 



;^8 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE V 

steps ; and this bridge became the eternal arena of combat, 
we taking good care to be on the right side of the bridge 
for retreat — i.e., on the town side, or the country side, 
accordingly as we were going out in the morning, or return- 

5 ing in the afternoon. Stones were the implements of war- 
fare ; and by continual practice both parties became expert 
in throwing them. 

The origin of the feud it is scarcely requisite to rehearse, 
since the particular accident which began it was not the 

lo true efficient cause of our long warfare, but simply the 
casual occasion. The cause lay in our aristocratic dress. 
As children of an opulent family, where all provisions were 
liberal, and all appointments elegant, we were uniformly 
well-dressed ; and, in particular, we wore trousers (at that 

15 time unheard of, except among sailors), and we also wore 
Hessian boots — a crime that could not be forgiven in the 
Lancashire of that day, because it expressed the double 
offence of being aristocratic and being outlandish. We 
were aristocrats, and it was vain to deny it ; could we 

20 deny our boots ? whilst our antagonists, if not absolutely 
sansculottes, were slovenly and forlorn in their dress, often 
unwashed, with hair totally neglected, and always covered 
with flakes of cotton. Jacobins they were not, as regarded 
any sympathy with the Jacobinism that then desolated 

25 France ; for, on the contrary, they detested everything 
French, and answered with brotherly signals to the cry of 
"Church and King," or "King and Constitution." But, 
for all that, as they were perfectly independent, getting 
very high wages, and these wages in a mode of industry 

30 that was then taking vast strides ahead, they contrived to 
reconcile this patriotic anti-Jacobinism with a personal 
Jacobinism of that sort which is native to the heart of 
man, who is by natural impulse (and not without a root of 
nobility, though also of base envy) impatient of inequality, 



INTRODUCTION TO THE WORLD OF STRIFE 39 

and submits to it only through a sense of its necessity, or 
under a long experience of its benefits. 

It was on an early day of our new tyrocinium^ or perhaps 
on the very first, that, as we passed the bridge, a boy hap- 
pening to issue from the factory ^ sang out to us, derisively, 5 
*' Holloa, Bucks ! " In this the reader may fail to perceive 
any atrocious insult commensurate to the long war which 
followed. But the reader is wrong. The word " dandies,^^ ^ 
which was what the villain meant, had not then been born, 
so that he could not have called us by that name, unless 10 
through the spirit of prophecy. Buck was the nearest word 
at hand in his Manchester vocabulary ; he gave all he could, 
and let us dream the rest. But in the next moment he 
discovered our boots, and he consummated his crime by 
saluting us as " Boots ! boots ! " My brother made a dead 15 
stop, surveyed him with intense disdain, and bade him draw 
near, that he might "give his flesh to the fowls of the air." 
The boy declined to accept this liberal invitation, and 
conveyed his answer by a most contemptuous and plebeian 
gesture,^ upon which my brother drove him in with a shower 20 
of stones. 

During this inaugural flourish of hostilities, I, for my 
part, remained inactive, and therefore apparently neutral. 
But this was the last time that I did so : for the moment, 
indeed, I was taken by surprise. To be called a buck by 25 

1 ''Factory'''' : — Such was the designation technically at that time. 
At present, I believe that a building of that class would be called a 
" mill." 

2 This word, however, exists in Jack-a-dandy — a very old English 
word. But what does that mean .'' 

3 Precisely, however, the same gesture, plebeian as it was, by which 
the English commandant at Heligoland replied to the Danes when 
civilly inviting him to surrender. Southey it was, on the authority 
of Lieutenant Southey, his brother, who communicated to me this 
anecdote. 



40 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

one that had it in his choice to have called me a coward, 
a thief, or a murderer, struck me as a most pardonable 
offence ; and as to boots^ that rested upon a flagrant fact 
that could not be denied ; so that at first I was green 
5 enough to regard the boy as very considerate and indulgent. 
But my brother soon rectified my views ; or, if any doubts 
remained, he impressed me, at least, with a sense of my 
paramount duty to himself, which was threefold. First, it 
seems that I owed military allegiance to hi7n, as my com- 

10 mander-in-chief, whenever we "took the field"; secondly, 
by the law of nations, I, being a cadet of my house, owed 
suit and service to him who was its head ; and he assured 
me, that twice in a year, on my birth-day and oxi his ^ he 
had a right, strictly speaking, to make me lie down, and to 

15 set his foot upon my neck ; lastly, by a law not so rigorous, 
but valid amongst gentlemen — viz., "by the comity of 
nations" — it seems I owed eternal deference to one so 
much older than myself, so much wiser, stronger, braver, 
more beautiful, and more swift of foot. Something like all 

20 this in tendency I had already believed, though I had not 
so minutely investigated the modes and grounds of my 
duty. By temperament, and through natural dedication to 
despondency, I felt resting upon me always too deep and 
gloomy a sense of obscure duties attached to life, that I 

25 never should be able to fulfil ; a burden which I could not 
carry, and which yet I did not know how to throw ofi". 
Glad, therefore, I was to find the whole tremendous weight 
of obligations — the law and the prophets — all crowded 
into this one pocket command, "Thou shalt obey thy 

30 brother as God's vicar upon earth." For now, if by any 
future stone levelled at him who had called me a "buck," 
I should chance to draw blood — perhaps I might not have 
committed so serious a trespass on any rights which he 
could plead : but if I had (ior on this subject my convictions 



INTRODUCTION TO THE WORLD OF STRIFE 41 

were still cloudy), at any rate the duty I might have 
violated in regard to this general brother, in right of Adam, 
was cancelled when it came into collision with my para- 
mount duty to this liege brother of my own individual 
house. 5 

From this day, therefore, I obeyed all my brother's 
military commands with the utmost docility ; and happy 
it made me that every sort of doubt, or question or 
opening for demur, was swallowed up in the unity of 
this one papal principle, discovered by my brother — 10 
viz., that all rights and duties of casuistry were trans- 
ferred from me to himself. His was the judgment — 
his was the responsibility ; and to me belonged only the 
sublime obligation of unconditional faith in him. That 
faith I realised. It is true that he taxed me at times, in 15 
his reports of particular fights, with "horrible cowardice," 
and even with a "cowardice that seemed inexplicable, 
except on the supposition of treachery." But this was 
only a fa^on de parler with him : the idea of secret perfidy, 
that was constantly moving under-ground, gave an inter- 20 
est to the progress of the war, which else tended to the 
monotonous. It was a dramatic artifice for sustaining 
the interest, where the incidents might happen to be too 
slightly diversified. But that he did not believe his own 
charges was clear, because he never repeated them in 25 
his ''General History of the Campaigns," which was a 
resume^ or recapitulating digest, of his daily reports. 

We fought every day ; and, generally speaking, twice 
every day; and the result was pretty uniform — viz., that 
my brother and I terminated the battle by insisting upon 30 
our undoubted right to run away. Magna Charta^ I should 
fancy, secures that great right to every man ; else, surely, 
it is sadly defective. But out of this catastrophe to most 
of our skirmishes, and to all our pitched battles except 



42 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

one, grew a standing schism between my brother and 
myself. My unlimited obedience had respect to action, 
but not to opinion. Loyalty to my brother did not rest 
upon hypocrisy ; because I was faithful, it did not follow 

5 that I must be false in relation to his capricious opinions. 
And these opinions sometimes took the shape of acts. 
Twice, at the least, in every week, but sometimes every 
night, my brother insisted on singing "Te Deum " for 
supposed victories he had won ; and he insisted also on 

10 my bearing a part in these "Te Deums." Now, as I 
knew of no such victories, but resolutely asserted the truth 
— viz., that we ran away — a slight jar was thus given to 
the else triumphal effect of these musical ovations. Once 
having uttered my protest, however, willingly I gave my 

15 aid to the chanting; for I loved unspeakably the grand 
and varied system of chanting in the Romish and English 
Churches. And, looking back at this day to the ineffable 
benefits which I derived from the church of my childhood, 
I account among the very greatest those which reached me 

20 through the various chants connected with the "O, Jubilate," 
the "Magnificat," the "Te Deum," the " Benedicite," etc. 
Through these chants it was that the sorrow which laid 
waste my infancy, and the devotion which nature had made 
a necessity of my being, were profoundly interfused : the 

25 sorrow gave reality and depth to the devotion ; the devotion 
gave grandeur and idealisation to the sorrow. Neither was 
my love for chanting altogether without knowledge. A son 
of my reverend guardian, much older than myself, who pos- 
sessed a singular faculty of producing a sort of organ accom- 

30 paniment with one-half of his mouth, whilst he sang with 
the other half, had given me some instructions in the art of 
chanting: and, as to my brother, he, the hundred-handed 
Briareus, could do all things ; of course, therefore, he could 
chant. 



INTRODUCTION TO THE WORLD OF STRIFE 43 

Once having begun, it followed naturally that the war 
should deepen in bitterness. Wounds that wrote memorials 
in the flesh, insults that rankled in the heart — these were 
not features of the case likely to be forgotten by our ene- 
mies, and far less by my fiery brother. I, for my part, 5 
entered not into any of the passions that war may be sup- 
posed to kindle, except only the chronic passion of anxiety. 
Fear it was not ; for experience had taught me that, under 
the random firing of our undisciplined enemies, the chances 
were not many of being wounded. But the uncertainties 10 
of the war ; the doubts in every separate action whether I 
could keep up the requisite connection with my brother ; 
and, in case I could not, the utter darkness that surrounded 
my fate; whether, as a trophy won from Israel, I should be 
dedicated to the service of some Manchester Dagon, or 15 
pass through fire to Moloch ; all these contingencies, for me 
that had no friend to consult, ran too violently into the 
master-current of my constitutional despondency, ever to 
give way under any casual elation of success. Success, 
however, we really had at times ; in slight skirmishes pretty 20 
often ; and once, at least, as the reader will find to his 
mortification, if he is wicked enough to take the side of 
the Philistines, a most smashing victory in a pitched battle. 
But even then, and whilst the hurrahs were yet ascending 
from our jubilating lips, the freezing remembrance came 25 
back to my heart of that deadly depression which, duly at 
the coming round of the morning and evening watches, 
travelled with me like my shadow on our approach to the 
memorable bridge. A bridge of sighs ^ too surely it was 

'^^^ Bridge of Sighs ^^ : — Two men of memorable genius, Hood last, 
and Lord Byron by many years previously, have so appropriated this 
phrase, and re-issued it as English currency, that many readers sup- 
pose it to be theirs. But the genealogies of fine expressions should be 
more carefully preserved. The expression belongs originally to Venice. 



44 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

for me ; and even for my brother it formed an object of 
fierce yet anxious jealousy, that he could not always dis- 
guise, as we first came in sight of it : for, if it happened to 
be occupied in strength, there was an end of all hope that 
we could attempt the passage ; and that was a fortunate 
solution of the difficulty, as it imposed no evil beyond a 
circuit ; which, at least, was safe, if the world should 
choose to call it inglorious. Even this shade of ignominy, 
however, my brother contrived to colour favourably, by 
calling us — that is, me and himself — "a corps of obser- 
vation " ; and he condescendingly explained to me, that, 
although making "a lateral movement," he had his eye 
upon the enemy, and '' might yet come round upon his left 

This jus postlimmii becomes of real importance in many cases, but 
especially in the case of Shakspere. Could one have believed it possi- 
ble beforehand ? And yet it is a fact that he is made to seem a robber 
of the lowest order, by mere dint of suffering robbery. Purely through 
their own jewelly splendour have many hundreds of his phrases forced 
themselves into usage so general, under the vulgar infirmity of seeking 
to strengthen weak prose by shreds of poetic quotation, that at length 
the majority of careless readers come to look upon these phrases as 
belonging to the language, and traceable to no distinct proprietor any 
more than proverbs : and thus, on afterwards observing them in 
Shakspere, they regard him in the light of one accepting alms (like so 
many meaner persons) from the common treasury of the universal 
mind, on which treasury, meantime, he had himself conferred these 
phrases as original donations of his own. Many expressions in the 
" Paradise Lost," in " II Penseroso," and in " L'Allegro," are in the 
same predicament. And thus the almost incredible case is realised 
which I have described — viz., that simply by having suffered a robbery 
through two centuries (for the first attempt at plundering Milton was 
made upon his juvenile poems), have Shakspere and Milton come to be 
taxed as robbers. N.B. — In speaking of Hood as having appropriated 
the phrase Bridge of Sighs, I would not be understood to represent him 
as by possibility aiming at any concealment. He was far above such a 
meanness by his nobility of heart, as he was raised above all need for it 
by the overflowing opulence of his genius. 



INTRODUCTION TO THE WORLD OF STRIFE 45 

flank in a way that wouldn't, perhaps, prove very agree- 
able." This, from the nature of the ground, never hap- 
pened. We crossed the river at Garrat, out of sight from 
the enemy's position ; and, on our return in the evening, 
when we reached that point of our route from which the 5 
retreat was secure to Greenhay, we took such revenge for 
the morning insult as might belong to extra liberality in 
our stone donations. On this line of policy there was, 
therefore, no cause for anxiety ; but the common case was, 
that the numbers might not be such as to justify this cau- 10 
tion, and yet quite enough for mischief. To my brother, 
however, stung and carried headlong into hostility by the 
martial instincts of his nature, the uneasiness of doubt or 
insecurity was swallowed up by his joy in the anticipation 
of victory, or even of contest ; whilst to myself, whose exul- 15 
tation was purely official and ceremonial, as due by loyalty 
from a cadet to the head of his house, no such compensa- 
tion existed. The enemy was no enemy in 77iy eyes ; his 
affronts were but retaliations ; and his insults were so 
inapplicable to my unworthy self, being of a calibre exclu- 20 
sively meant for the use of my brother, that from me they 
recoiled, one and all, as cannon-shot from cotton bags. 

The ordinary course of our day's warfare was this : 
between nine and ten in the morning occurred our first 
transit, and consequently our earliest opportunity for doing 25 
business. But at this time the great sublunary interest of 
breakfast, which swallowed up all nobler considerations of 
glory and ambition, occupied the work-people of the fac- 
tory (or what in the pedantic diction of this day are 
termed the " operatives "), so that very seldom any serious 30 
business was transacted. Without any formal armistice, 
the paramount convenience of such an arrangement silently 
secured its own recognition. Notice there needed none of 
truce, when the one side yearned for breakfast, and the 



46 SELECTIONS FROM Dh QUINCE Y 

other for a respite ; the groups, therefore, on or about the 
bridge, if any at all, were loose in their array, and careless. 
We passed through them rapidly, and, on my part, uneasily ; 
exchanging a few snarls, perhaps, but seldom or never snap- 
5 ping at each other. The tameness was almost shocking of 
those who, in the afternoon, would inevitably resume their 
natural characters of tiger-cats and wolves. Sometimes, 
however, my brother felt it to be a duty that we should 
fight in the morning ; particularly when any expression of 

10 public joy for a victory — bells ringing in the distance — 
or when a royal birth-day, or some traditional commemora- 
tion of ancient feuds (such as the 5th of November), irritated 
his martial propensities. Some of these, being religious fes- 
tivals, seemed to require of us an extra homage, for which 

15 we knew not how to find any natural or significant expres- 
sion, except through sharp discharges of stones, that being 
a language older than Hebrew or Sanscrit, and universally 
intelligible. But, excepting these high days of religious 
solemnity, when a man is called upon to show that he is not 

20 a Pagan or a miscreant in the eldest of senses, by thump- 
ing, or trying to thump, somebody who is accused or accus- 
able of being heterodox, the great ceremony of breakfast 
was allowed to sanctify the hour. Some natural growls we 
uttered, but hushed them soon, regardless 

25 " Of the sweeping whirlpool's sway, 

That, hush'd in grim repose, look'd for his evening prey." 

That came but too surely. Yes, evening never forgot to 
come ; this odious necessity of fighting never missed its road 
back, or fell asleep, or loitered by the way, more than a bill 
30 of exchange, or a tertian fever. Five times a week (Satur- 
day sometimes, and Sunday always, were days of rest) the 
same scene rehearsed itself in pretty nearly the same suc- 
cession of circumstances. Between four and five o'clock we 



INTRODUCTION TO THE WORLD OF STRIFE 47 

had crossed the bridge to the safe, or Greenhay, side ; then 
we paused, and waited for the enemy. Sooner or later a 
bell rang, and from the smoky hive issued the hornets that 
night and day stung incurably my peace of mind. The 
order and procession of the incidents after this were odi- 5 
ously monotonous. My brother occupied the main high- 
road, precisely at the point where a very gentle rise of the 
ground attained its summit ; for the bridge lay in a slight 
valley ; and the main military position was fifty or eighty 
yards above the bridge; then — but having first examined 10 
my pockets, in order to be sure that my stock of ammu- 
nition — stones, fragments of slate, with a reasonable pro- 
portion of brickbats — was all correct and ready for action 
— he detached me about forty yards to the right, my 
orders being invariable, and liable to no doubts or "quib- 15 
bling." Detestable in my ears was that word ^^ guibbBig,^^ 
by which, for a thousand years, if the war had happened 
to last so long, he would have fastened upon me the impu- 
tation of meaning, or wishing, at least, to do what he called 
" pettifogulising " — that is, to plead some distinction, or 20 
verbal demur, in bar of my orders, under some colourable 
pretence that, according to their literal construction, .they 
really did not admit of being fulfilled, or perhaps that 
they admitted it too much as being capable of fulfilment in 
two senses, either of them a practical sense. True it was 25 
that my eye was preternaturally keen for flaws of lan- 
guage, not from pedantic exaction of superfluous accuracy, 
but, on the contrary, from too conscientious a wish to escape 
the mistakes which language not rigorous is apt to occa- 
sion. So far from seeking to " pettifogulise " — i.e., to find 30 
evasions for any purpose in a trickster's minute tortuosities 
of construction — exactly in the opposite direction, from 
mere excess of sincerity, most unwillingly I found, in almost 
everybody's words, an unintentional opening left for double 



48 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y^ 

interpretations. Undesigned equivocation prevails every- 
where ; ^ and it is not the cavilling hair-splitter, but, on the 
contrary, the single-eyed servant of truth, that is most 
likely to insist upon the limitation of expressions too wide 

5 or too vague, and upon the decisive election between 
meanings potentially double. Not in order to resist or 
evade my brother's directions, but for the very opposite 
purpose — viz., that I might fulfil them to the letter — thus 
and no otherwise it happened that F showed so much scru- 

10 pulosity about the exact value and position of his words, as 
finally to draw upon myself the vexatious reproach of being 
habitually a " pettifoguliser." 

Meantime, our campaigning continued to rage. Over- 
tures of pacification were never mentioned on either side. 

15 And I, for 7ny part, with the passions only of peace at my 
heart, did the works of war faithfully, and with distinction. 
I presume so, at least, from the results. It is true I was 
continually falling into treason, without exactly knowing 
how I got into it, or how I got out of it. My brother also, 

20 it is true, sometimes assured me that he could, according to 
the rigour of martial justice, have me hanged on the first 
tree w^e passed ; to which my prosaic answer had been, that 
of trees there we7'e none in Oxford Street — (which, in imi- 
tation of Von Troil's famous chapter on the snakes of 

25 Lapland, the reader may accept, if he pleases, as a complete 

1 Geometry (it has been said) would not evade disputation, if a man 
could find his interest in disputing it : such is the spirit of cavil. But I, 
upon a very opposite ground, assert that there is not one page of prose 
that could be selected from the best writer in the English language (far 
less in the German), which, upon a sufficient interest arising, would not 
furnish matter, simply through its defects in precision, for a suit in 
Chancery. Chancery suits do not arise, it is true, because the doubtful 
expressions do not touch any interest of property ; but what does arise 
is this — that something more valuable than a pecuniary interest is 
continually suffering — viz., the interests of truth. 



INTRODUCTION TO THE WORLD OF STRIFE 49 

course of lectures on the "dendrology" of Oxford Street) 
• — but, notwithstanding such little stumblings in my career, 
I continued to ascend in the service ; and I am sure it will 
gratify my friendly readers to hear, that, before my eighth 
birth-day, I was promoted to the rank of major-general. 5 
Over this sunshine, however, soon swept a train of clouds. 
Three times I was taken prisoner ; and with different results. 
The first time I was carried to the rear, and not molested 
in any way. Finding myself thus ignominiously neglected, 
I watched my opportunity ; and, by making a wide circuit, 10 
easily effected my escape. In the next case, a brief council 
was held over me ; but I was not allowed to hear the delib- 
erations ; the result only being communicated to me — which 
result consisted in a message not very complimentary to my 
brother, and a small present of kicks to myself. This pres- 15 
ent was paid down without any discount, by means of a 
general subscription amongst the party surrounding me — 
that party, luckily, not being very numerous ; besides which, 
I must, in honesty, acknowledge myself, generally speaking, 
indebted to their forbearance. They were not disposed to 20 
be too hard upon me. But, at the same time, they clearly 
did not think it right that I should escape altogether from 
tasting the calamities of war. And this translated the esti- 
mate of my guilt from the public jurisdiction to that of the 
individual, sometimes capricious and harsh, and carrying 25 
out the public award by means of legs that ranged through 
all gradations of weight and agility. One kick differed 
exceedingly from another kick in dynamic value ; and, in 
some cases, this difference was so distressingly conspicuous, 
as to imply special malice, unworthy, I conceive, of all 30 
generous soldiership. 

On returning to our own frontiers, I had an opportunity 
of displaying my exemplary greenness. That message to 
my brother, with all its virus of insolence, I repeated as 



50 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

faithfully for the spirit, and as literally for the expressions, 
as my memory allowed me to do : and in that troublesome 
effort, simpleton that I was, fancied myself exhibiting a 
soldier's loyalty to his commanding officer. My brother 
5 thought otherwise : he was more angry with me than with 
the enemy. I ought, he said, to have refused all partici- 
pation in such sansculottes' insolence ; to carry it, was to 
acknowledge it as fit to be carried. One grows wiser every 
day ; and on this particular day I made a resolution that, 

lo if again made prisoner, I would bring no more "jaw" (so 
my brother called it) from the Philistines. If these people 
7cw//^send "jaw," I settled that, henceforwards, it must go 
through the post-office. 

In my former captures, there had been nothing special or 

15 worthy of commemoration in the circumstances. Neither 
was there in the third, excepting that, by accident, in the 
second stage of the case, I was delivered over to the custody 
of young women and girls ; whereas the ordinary course 
would have thrown me upon the vigilant attentions (relieved 

20 from monotony by the experimental kicks) of boys. So far, 
the change was very much for the better. I had a feeling 
myself, on first being presented to my new young mistresses, 
of a distressing sort. Having always, up to the completion 
of my sixth year, been a privileged pet, and almost, I might 

25 say, ranking amongst the sanctities of the household, with 
all its female sections, whether young or old (an advantage 
which I owed originally to a long illness, an ague, stretching 
over two entire years of my infancy), naturally I had learned 
to appreciate the indulgent tenderness of women; and my 

30 heart thrilled with love and gratitude, as often as they took 
me up into their arms and kissed me. Here it would have 
been as everywhere else ; but, unfortunately, my introduc- 
tion to these young women was in the very worst of charac- 
ters. I had been taken in arms — in arms against their own 



IXTKODUCTION TO THE WORLD OF STRIFE 51 

brothers, cousins, sweethearts, and on pretexts too frivolous 
to mention. If asked the question, it would be found that 
I should not myself deny the fact of being at war with their 
whole order. What was the meaning of that! What was 
it to which war pledged a man ? It pledged him, in case 5 
of opportunity, to burn, ravage, and depopulate the houses 
and lands of the enemy ; which enemy was these fair girls. 
The warrior stood committed to universal destruction. 
Neither sex nor age ; neither the smiles of unoffending 
infancy nor the grey hairs of the venerable patriarch ; 10 
neither the sanctity of the matron nor the loveliness of 
the youthful bride, would confer any privilege with the 
warrior, consequently not with me. 

Many other hideous features in the military character 
will be found in books innumerable — levelled at those who 15 
make war, and therefore at myself. And it appears finally 
by these books — that, as one of my ordinary practices, I 
make a wilderness, and call it a pacification ; that I hold it 
a duty to put people to the sword ; which done, to plough 
up the foundations of their hearths and altars, and then to 20 
sow the ground with salt. 

All this was passing through my brain, when suddenly 
one young woman snatched me up in her arms, and kissed 
me ; from her^ I was passed round to others of the party, 
who all in turn caressed me, with no allusion to that warlike 25 
mission, against them and theirs, which only had procured 
me the honour of an introduction to themselves in the char- 
acter of captive. The too palpable fact that I* was not the 
person meant by nature to exterminate their families, or to 
make wildernesses and call them pacifications, had with- 30 
drawn from their minds the counter fact — that, whatever 
had been my performances, my intentions had been hostile, 
and that in such a character only I could have become their 
prisoner. Not only did these young people kiss me, but I 



52 SELECTIONS FROM BE QUINCE Y 

(seeing no military reason against it) kissed them. Really, 
if young women will insist on kissing major-generals, they 
must expect that the generals will retaliate. One only of 
the crowd adverted to the character in which I came before 
5 them : to be a lawful prisoner, it struck her too logical 
mind that I must have been caught in some aggressive 
practices. "Think," she said, "of this little dog fighting, 
and fighting our Jack." "But," said another, in a pro- 
pitiatory tone, "perhaps he'll not do so any more." I was 

lo touched by the kindness of her suggestion, and the sweet, 
merciful sound of that same '^ Not do so any more^^^ which 
really was prompted, I fear, much more by that charity in 
lier which hopeth all things, than by any signs of amend- 
ment in myself. Well was it for me that no time was 

i5 allowed for investigation into my morals by point-blank 
questions as to my future intentions. In which case it 
would have appeared too undeniably, that the same sad 
necessity which had planted me hitherto in a position of 
hostility to their estimable families, would continue to 

20 persecute me ; and that, on the very next day, duty to 
my brother, howsoever it might struggle with gratitude 
to themselves, would range me in martial attitude, with a 
pocketful of stones, meant, alas ! for the exclusive use of 
their respectable kinsmen. Whilst I was preparing myself, 

25 however, for this painful exposition, my female friends 
observed issuing from the factory a crowd of boys not 
likely at all to improve my prospects. Instantly setting 
me down on my feet, they formed a sort of cordon sa7iitaire 
behind me, by stretching out their petticoats or aprons, as 

30 in dancing, so as to touch : and then, crying out, " Now, 
little dog, run for thy life," prepared themselves (I doubt 
not) for rescuing me, should my re-capture be effected. 

But this was not effected, although attempted with an 
energy that alarmed me, and even perplexed me with a 



INTRODUCTION TO THE WORLD OF STRIFE 53 

vague thought (far too ambitious for my years) that one 
or two of the pursuing party might be possessed by some 
demon of jealousy, as eyewitnesses to my revelling amongst 
the lips of that fair girlish bevy, kissing and being kissed, 
loving and being loved ; in which case, from all that ever 5 
I had read about jealousy (and I had read a great deal — 
viz., "Othello," and CoUins's "Ode to the Passions"), I was 
satisfied that, if again captured, I had very little chance for 
my life. That jealousy was a green-eyed monster, nobody 
could know better than / did. " Oh, my lord, beware of 10 
jealousy ! " Yes ; and my lord couldn't possibly have more 
reason for bewaring of it than myself ; indeed, well it would 
have been had his lordship run away from all the ministers 
of jealousy — lago, Cassio, and embroidered handkerchiefs 
— at the same pace of six miles an hour which kept me 15 
ahead of my infuriated pursuers. Ah, that maniac, white 
as a leper with flakes of cotton, can I ever forget him, Jwn 
that ran so far in advance of his party ? What passion, 
but jealousy, could have sustained him in so hot a chase ? 
There were some lovely girls in the fair company that had 20 
so condescendingly caressed me ; but, doubtless, upon that 
sweet creature his love must have settled, who suggested, 
in her soft, relenting voice, a penitence in me that, alas ! 
had not dawned, saying, " Yes ; but perhaps he will not do so 
any tnoreT Thinking, as I ran, of her beauty, I felt that 25 
this jealous demoniac must fancy himself justified in com- 
mitting seven times seven murders upon me, if he should 
have it in his power. But, thank heaven, if jealousy can 
run six miles an hour, there are other passions, as for 
instance panic, that can run, upon occasion, six and a half ; 3^^ 
so, as I had the start of him (you know, reader), and not a 
very short start — thanks be to the expanded petticoats of 
my dear female friends ! — naturally it happened that the 
green-eyed monster came in second best. Time luckily was 



54 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

precious with hifn ; and, accordingly, when he had chased 
me into the by-road leadingdown to Greenhay, he turned back. 
For the moment, therefore, I found myself suddenly released 
from danger. But this counted for nothing. The same 

5 scene would probably revolve upon me continually ; and, 
on the next rehearsal. Green-eyes might have better luck. 
It saddened me, besides, to find myself under the political 
necessity of numbering amongst the Philistines, and as 
daughters of Gath, so many kind-hearted girls, whom, by 

lo personal proof, I knew to be such. In the profoundest 
sense I was unhappy ; and not from any momentary acci- 
dent of distress, but from deep glimpses which now, and 
heretofore, had opened themselves, as occasions arose, into 
the inevitable conflicts of life. One of the saddest among 

15 such conflicts is the necessity, wheresoever it occurs, of 
adopting — though the heart should disown — the enmi- 
ties of one's own family, or country, or religious sect. In 
forms how afflicting must that necessity have sometimes 
occurred during the Parliamentary War ! And, in after 

20 years, amongst our beautiful old English metrical romances, 
I found the same impassioned complaint uttered by a knight, 
Sir Ywain, as early as a.d. 1240 — 

" But now, where'er I stray or go, 
My heart She has that is my foe! " 

25 I knew — I anticipated to a certainty — that my brother 
would not hear of any merit belonging to the factory popu- 
lation whom every day we had to meet in battle; on the 
contrary, even submission on their part, and willingness to 
walk penitentially through the FurccB Caudi?ice, would hardly 

30 have satisfied his sense of their criminality. Often, indeed, 
as we came in view of the factory, he would shake his fist at 
it, and say, in a ferocious tone of voice, " Delenda est Car- 
thago ."' And certainly, I thought to myself, it must be 



INTRODUCTION TO THE WORLD OF STRIFE 55 

admitted by everybody, that the factory people are inex- 
cusable in raising a rebellion against my brother. But still 
rebels were men, and sometimes were women ; and rebels 
that stretch out their petticoats like fans for the sake of 
screening one from the hot pursuit of enemies with fiery 5 
eyes (green or otherwise) really are not the sort of people 
that one wishes to hate. 

Homewards, therefore, I drew in sadness, and little 
doubting that hereafter I might have verbal feuds with my 
brother on behalf of my fair friends, but not dreaming how 10 
much displeasure I had already incurred by my treasonable 
collusion with their caresses. That part of the affair he had 
seen with his own eyes, from his position on the field ; and 
then it was that he left me indignantly to my fate, which, by 
my first reception, it was easy to see would not prove very 15 
gloomy. When I came into our own study, I found him 
engaged in preparing a bulletin (which word was just then 
travelling into universal use), reporting briefly the events 
of the day. The art of drawing, as I shall again have 
occasion to mention, was amongst his foremost accom- 20 
plishments ; and round the margin of the bulletin ran a 
black border, ornamented with cypress, and other funereal 
emblems. When finished, it was carried into the room of 
Mrs. Evans. This Mrs. Evans was an important person in 
our affairs. My mother, who never chose to have any 25 
direct communication with her servants, always had a 
housekeeper for the regulation of all domestic business ; 
and the housekeeper for some years was this Mrs. Evans. 
Into her private parlour, where she sat aloof from the under 
servants, my brother and I had the entree at all times, but 30 
upon very different terms of acceptance : he as a favourite 
of the first class ; /, by sufferance, as a sort of gloomy 
shadow that ran after his person, and could not well be 
shut out if he were let in. Him she admired in the very 



56 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

highest degree ; myself, on the contrary, she detested, — 
which made me unhappy. But then, in some measure, she 
made amends for this, by despising me in extremity ; and 
for that I was truly thankful — I need not say why, as the 
5 reader already knows. Why she detested me, so far as I 
know, arose in part out of my thoughtfulness indisposed to 
garrulity, and in part out of my savage, Orson-like sincerity. 
I had a great deal to say, but then I could say it only to a 
very few people, amongst whom Mrs. Evans was certainly 

10 not one ; and when I did say anything, I fear that dire 
ignorance prevented my laying the proper restraints upon 
my too liberal candour ; and that could not prove accept- 
able to one who thought nothing of working for any pur- 
pose, or for no purpose, by petty tricks, or even falsehoods 

15 — all which I held in stern abhorrence, that I was at no 
pains to conceal. The bulletin on this occasion, garnished 
with its pageantry of woe, cypress wreaths, and arms 
reversed, was read aloud to Mrs. Evans, indirectly there- 
fore to me. It communicated, with Spartan brevity, the 

20 sad intelligence (but not sad to Mrs. E.), " that the major- 
general had for ever disgraced himself, by submitting to 
the caresses of the enemy." I leave a blank for the 

epithet affixed to "caresses," not because there was any 
blank, but, on the contrary, because my brother's wrath 

25 had boiled over in such a hubble-bubble of epithets, some 
only half erased, some doubtfully erased, that it was impos- 
sible, out of the various readings, to pick out the true 
classical text. "Infamous," "disgusting," and "odious," 
struggled for precedency ; and infainous they might be ; 

30 but on the other affixes I held my own private opinions. 
For some days, my brother's displeasure continued to roll 
in reverberating thunders ; but at length it growled itself 
to rest ; and at last he descended to mild expostulations 
with me, showing clearly, in a series of general orders, what 



INTRODUCTION TO THE WORLD OF STRIFE 57 

frightful consequences must ensue, if major-generals (as a 
general principle) should allow themselves to be kissed by 
the enemy. 

About this time, my brother began to issue, instead of 
occasional bulletins, through which hitherto he had breathed 5 
his opinions into the ear of the public (viz., of Mrs. Evans), 
a regular gazette, which, in imitation of the " London 
Gazette," was published twice a week. I suppose that no 
creature ever led such a life as /did in that gazette. Run 
up to the giddiest heights of promotion on one day, for 10 
merits which I could not myself discern, in a week or two I 
was brought to a court-martial for offences equally obscure. 
I was cashiered ; I was restored " on the intercession of a 
distinguished lady " (Mrs. Evans, to wit) ; I was threatened 
with being drummed out of the army, to the music of the 15 
" Rogue's March " ; and then, in the midst of all this misery 
and degradation, upon the discovery of some supposed 
energy that I had manifested, I was decorated with the 
Order of the Bath. My reading had been extensive enough 
to give me some vague aerial sense of the honour involved 20 
in such a decoration, whilst I was profoundly ignorant of 
the channels through which it could reach an individual, 
and of the sole fountain from which it could flow. But, in 
this enormity of disproportion between the cause and the 
effect, between the agency and the result, I saw nothing 25 
more astonishing than I had seen in many other cases con- 
fessedly true. Thousands of vast effects, by all that I had 
heard, linked themselves to causes apparently trivial. The 
dreadful taint of scrofula, according to the belief of all 
Christendom, fled at the simple touch of a Stuart sover- 30 
eign^: no miracle in the Bible, from Jordan or from 

"^ '■'■ Of a Stuart sovereign'" : — and by no means of a Stuart only. 
Queen Anne, the last Stuart who sat on the British throne, was the 
last of our princes who touched for the ki?ig"s evil (as scrofula was 



5 8 SELECTIONS FROM BE QUINCE Y 

Bethesda, could be more sudden, or more astoundingly 
victorious. By my own experience, again, I knew that a 
styan (as it is called) upon the eyelid could be easily 
reduced, though not instantaneously, by the slight appli- 

5 cation of any golden trinket. Warts upon the fingers of 
children I had myself known to vanish under the verbal 
charm of a gipsy woman, without any medicinal appli- 
cation whatever. And I well knew, that almost all nations 
believed in the dreadful mystery of the evil eye ; some 

10 requiring, as a condition of the evil agency, the co-presence 
of malice in the agent ; but others, as appeared from my 
father's Portuguese recollections, ascribing the same horrid 
power to the eye of certain select persons, even though 
innocent of all malignant purpose, and absolutely uncon- 

15 scious of their own fatal gift, until awakened to it by 
the results. Why, therefore, should there be anything to 
shock, or even to surprise, in the power claimed by my 
brother, as an attribute inalienable from primogeniture 
in certain select families, of conferring knightly honours ? 

20 The red riband of the Bath he certainly did confer upon 
me ; and once, in a paroxysm of imprudent liberality, he 
promised me at the end of certain months, supposing that 
I swerved from my duty by no atrocious delinquency, the 
Garter itself. This, I knew, was a far loftier distinction 

25 than the Bath. Even then it was so ; and since those days 
it has become much more so ; because the long roll of mar- 
tial services in the great war with Napoleon compelled our 
government greatly to widen the basis of the Bath. This 

generally called until lately) ; but the Bourbon Houses, on the thrones 
of France, Spain, and Naples, as well as the House of Savoy, claimed 
and exercised the same supernatural privilege down to a much later 
period than the year 17 14 — the last of Queen Anne: according to 
their own and the popular faith, they could have cleansed Naaman 
the Syrian, and Gehazi too. 



INTRODUCriON TO THE WORLD OF STRIFE 59 

promise was never fulfilled ; but not for any want of clam- 
orous persecution on my part addressed to my brother's 
wearied ear, and somewhat callous sense of honour. Every 
fortnight or so, I took care that he should receive a 
"refresher," as lawyers call it — a new and revised brief — 5 
memorialising my pretensions. These it was my brother's 
policy to parry, by alleged instances of recent miscon- 
duct on my part. But all such offences, I insisted, were 
thoroughly washed away by subsequent services in moments 
of peril, such as he himself could not always deny. In 10 
reality, I believe his real motive for withholding the Garter 
was, that he had nothing better to bestow upon himself. 

" Now, look here, "he would say, appealing to Mrs. Evans; 
" I suppose there's a matter of half a dozen kings on the 
Continent that would consent to lose three of their fingers, 15 
if by such a sacrifice they could purchase the blue riband ; 
and here is this little scamp, conceiting himself entitled to it 
before he has finished two campaigns." But I was not the 
person to be beaten off in this fashion. I took my stand 
upon the promise. A promise ivas a promise, even if made 20 

to a scamp; and then, besides but there I hesitated; 

awful thoughts interposed to check me ; else I wished to 
suggest that, perhaps, some two or three among that half- 
dozen kings might also be scamps. However, I reduced the 
case to this plain dilemma : These six kings had received a 25 
promise, or they had not. If they had not, my case was 
better than theirs ; if they had^ then, said I, " all seven of 

us " 1 was going to add, " are sailing in the same boat," 

or something to that effect, though not so picturesquely 
expressed ; but I was interrupted by his deadly frown at my 30 
audacity in thus linking myself on as a seventh to this 
attelage of kings ; and that such an absolute grub should 
dream of ranking as one in a bright pleiad of pretenders to 
the Garter. I had not particularly thought of that ; but, 



6o SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

now that such a demur was offered to my consideration, I 
thought of reminding him that, in a certain shadowy sense, 
I also might presume to class myself as a king, — the mean- 
ing of which w^as this : Both my brother and myself, for the 

5 sake of varying our intellectual amusements, occupied our- 
selves at times in governing imaginary kingdoms. I do not 
mention this as anything unusual ; it is a common resource 
of mental activity and of aspiring energies amongst boys. 
Hartley Coleridge, for example, had a kingdom which he 

10 governed for many years ; whether well or ill, is more than 
I can say. Kindly, I am sure, he would govern it ; but, unless 
a machine had been invented for enabling him to write with- 
out effort (as was really done for our Fourth George during 
the pressure of illness), I fear that the public service must 

15 have languished deplorably for want of the royal signature. 
In sailing past his own dominions, what dolorous outcries 
would have saluted him from the shore — "Holloa, royal 
sir ! here's the deuce to pay: a perfect lock there is, as tight 
as locked jaw, upon the course of our public business ; throats 

20 there are to be cut, from the product of ten jail-deliveries, 
and nobody dares to cut them, for want of the proper war- 
rant ; archbishoprics there are to be filled, and, because 
they are not filled, the whole nation is running helter-skelter 
into heresy ; — and all in consequence of your majesty's 

25 sacred laziness." Our governments were less remissly 
administered ; since each of us, by continued reports of 
improvements and gracious concessions to the folly or the 
weakness of our subjects, stimulated the zeal of his rival. 
And here, at least, there seemed to be no reason why I 

30 should come into collision with my brother. At any rate, 
I took pains not to do so. But all was in vain. My destiny 
was, to live in one eternal element of feud. 

My own kingdom was an island called Gombroon. But 
in what parallel of north or south latitude it lay, I concealed 



INTRODUCTION TO THE WORLD OF STRIFE 6i 

for a time as rigorously as ancient Rome through every 
century concealed her real name.^ The object in this pro- 
visional concealment was, to regulate the position of my own 
territory by that of my brother's ; for I was determined to 
place a monstrous world of waters between us, as the only 5 
chance (and a very poor one it proved) for compelling my 
brother to keep the peace. At length, for some reason 
unknown to me, and much to my astonishment, he located 
his capital city in the high latitude of 65 deg. north. That 
fact being once published and settled, instantly I smacked 10 
my little kingdom of Gombroon down into the tropics, 10 
deg., I think, south of the line. Now, at least, I was on 
the right side of the hedge, or so I flattered myself ; for it 
struck me that my brother never would degrade himself by 
fitting out a costly nautical expedition against poor little 15 
Gombroon ; and how else could he get at me ? Surely the 
very fiend himself, if he happened to be in a high arctic 
latitude, would not indulge his malice so far as to follow its 
trail into the Tropic of Capricorn. And what was to be got 
by such a freak ? There was no Golden Fleece in Gombroon. 20 
If the fiend or my brother fancied that^ for once they were 
in the wrong box ; and there was no variety of vegetable 
produce, for I never denied that the poor little island was 
only 270 miles in circuit. Think, then, of sailing through 
75 deg. of latitude only to crack such a miserable little 25 
filbert as that. But my brother stunned me by explaining 
that, although his capital lay in lat. 65 deg. N., not the less 

1 One reason, I believe, why it was held a point of wisdom, in 
ancient days, that the metropolis of a warlike state should have a 
secret name hidden from the world, lay in the Pagan practice of evocation, 
applied to the tutelary deities of such a state. These deities might be 
lured by certain rites and briberies into a transfer of their favours to the 
besieging army. But, in order to make such an evocation effectual, it 
was necessary to know the original and secret name of the beleaguered 
city : and this, therefore, was religiously concealed. 



62 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

his dominions swept southwards through a matter of 80 or 
90 deg. ; and, as to the Tropic of Capricorn, much of it 
was his own private property. I was aghast at hearing 
thai. It seemed that vast horns and promontories ran down 
5 from all parts of his dominions towards any country what- 
soever, in either hemisphere — empire, or republic ; mon- 
archy, polyarchy, or anarchy — that he might have reasons 
for assaulting. 

Here in one moment vanished all that I had relied on 

10 for protection : distance I had relied on, and suddenly I was 
found in close neighbourhood to my most formidable enemy. 
Poverty I had relied on, and that^wzs not denied ; he granted 
the poverty, but it was dependent on the barbarism of the 
Gombroonians. It seems that in the central forests of 

15 Gombroonia there were diamond mines, which my people, 
from their low condition of civilisation, did not value, nor 
had any means of working. Farewell, therefore, on my side, 
to all hopes of enduring peace, for here was established, in 
legal phrase, a lien for ever upon my island, and not upon 

20 its margin, but its very centre, in favour of any invaders, 
better able than the natives to make its treasures available. 
For, of old, it was an article in my brother's code of morals 
— that, supposing a contest between any two parties, of 
which one possessed an article, whilst the other was better 

25 able to use it, the rightful property vested in the latter. As 
if you met a man with a musket, then you might justly 
challenge him to a trial in the art of making gunpowder ; 
which if you could make, and he could not^ in that case the 
musket was de jure yours. For what shadow of a right 

30 had the fellow to a noble instrument which he could not 
" maintain" in a serviceable condition, and "feed " with its 
daily rations of powder and shot ? Still, it may be fancied 
that, since all the relations between us as independent 
sovereigns (whether of war, or peace, or treaty) rested 



INTRODUCTION TO THE WORLD OF STRIFE 63 

upon our own representations and official reports, it was 
surely within my competence to deny or qualify, as much 
as within his to assert. But, in reality, the law of the con- 
test between us, as suggested by some instinct of propriety 
in my own mind, would not allow me to proceed in such 5 
a method. What he said was like a move at chess or 
draughts, which it was childish to dispute. The move 
being made, my business was — to face it, to parry it, to 
evade it, and, if I could, to overthrow it. I proceeded as a 
lawyer who moves as long as he can, not by blank denial 10 
of facts (or coming to an issue) ^ but by demurring (i.e., admit- 
ting the allegations of fact, but otherwise interpreting their 
construction). It was the understood necessity of the case, 
that I must passively accept my brother's statements so far 
as regarded their verbal expression ; and, if I would extri- 15 
cate my poor islanders from their troubles, it must be by 
some distinction or evasion lying ivitkin this expression, or 
not blankly contradicting it. 

"How, and to what extent," my brother asked, "did I 
raise taxes upon my subjects ? " My first impulse was to 20 
say, that I did not tax them at all, for I had a perfect hor- 
ror of doing so ; but prudence would not allow of my say- 
ing that; because it was too probable he would demand to 
know how, in that case, I maintained a standing army; and 
if I once allowed it to be supposed that I had none, there 25 
was an end for ever to the independence of my people. 
Poor things ! they would have been invaded and dragooned 
in a month. I took some days, therefore, to consider that 
point, but at last replied, that my people, being maritime, 
supported themselves mainly by a herring fishery, from 30 
which I deducted a part of the produce, and afterwards 
sold it for manure to neighbouring nations. This last hint 
I borrowed from the conversation of a stranger who hap- 
pened to dine one day at Greenhay, and mentioned that in 



64 SELECTIONS FROM BE QUINCE Y 

Devonshire, or at least on the western coast of that coun- 
try, near Ilfracombe, upon any excessive take of herrings, 
beyond what the markets could absorb, the surplus was 
applied to the land as a valuable dressing. It might be 
5 inferred from this account, however, that the arts must 
be in a languishing state, amongst a people that did not 
understand the process of salting fish ; and my brother 
observed derisively, much to my grief, that a wretched 
ichthyophagous people must make shocking soldiers, weak 

lo as water, and liable to be knocked over like nine-pins ; 
whereas, in his army, not a man ever ate herrings, pil- 
chards, mackerels, or, in fact, condescended to anything 
worse than sirloins of beef. 

At every step I had to contend for the honour and 

15 independence of my islanders; so that early I came to 
understand the weight of Shakspere's sentiment — 

" Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown ! " 

Oh, reader, do not laugh ! I lived for ever under the terror 
of two separate wars in two separate worlds : one against 

20 the factory boys, in a real world of flesh and blood, of 
stones and brickbats, of flight and pursuit, that were any- 
thing but figurative ; the other in a world purely aerial, 
where all the combats and the sufferings were absolute 
moonshine. And yet the simple truth is — that, for anxiety 

25 and distress of mind, the reality (which almost every morn- 
ing's light brought round) was as nothing in comparison of 
that dream-kingdom which rose like a vapour from my own 
brain, and which apparently by ih^Jiat of my will could be 
for ever dissolved. Ah ! but no ; I had contracted obliga- 

30 tions to Gombroon ; I had submitted my conscience to a 
yoke ; and in secret truth my will had no such autocratic 
power. Long contemplation of a shadow, earnest study 
for the welfare of that shadow, sympathy with the wounded 



INTRODUCTION TO THE WORLD OF STRIFE 65 

sensibilities of that shadow under accumulated wrongs, these 
bitter experiences, nursed by brooding thought, had grad- 
ually frozen that shadow into a rigour of reality far denser 
than the material realities of brass or granite. Who builds 
the most durable dwellings ? asks the labourer in " Hamlet " ; 
and the answer is, The gravedigger. He builds for corrup- 
tion ; and yet his tenements are incorruptible : "the houses 
which he makes last to doomsday." ^ Who is it that seeks 
for concealment ? Let him hide himself^ in the unsearch- 

1 " Hamlet," Act v. scene i. 

'^^'- Hide himself in — light'''' : — The greatest scholar, by far, that 
this island ever produced (viz., Richard Bentley) published (as is well 
known) a 4to volume that in some respects is the very worst 4to now 
extant in the world — viz., a critical edition of the " Paradise Lost." I 
observe, in the "Edinburgh Review" (July, 1851, No. 191, p. 15), that 
a learned critic supposes Bentley to have meant this edition as a 
"practical jest." Not at all. Neither could the critic have fancied 
such a possibility, if he had taken the trouble (which / did many a 
year back) to examine it. A jest-book it certainly is, and the most 
prosperous of jest-books, but undoubtedly never meant for such by the 
author. A man whose lips are livid with anger does not jest, and does 
not understand jesting. Still, the Edinburgh Reviewer is right about 
the proper functions of the book, though wrong about the intentions of 
the author. The fact is, the man was maniacally in error, and always in 
error, as regarded the ultimate or poetic truth of Milton ; but, as regarded 
truth reputed and truth apparent, he often had the air of being furiously 
in the right ; an example of which I will cite. Milton, in the First Book 
of the " Paradise Lost," had said — 

" That from the secret top 
Of Oreb or of Sinai didst inspire ; " 

upon which Bentley comments in effect thus: "How! — the exposed 
summit of a mountain secret? Why, it's like Charing Cross — always 
the least secret place in the whole county." So one might fancy : since 
the summit of a mountain, like Plinlimmon or Cader Idris in Wales, 
like Skiddaw or Helvellyn in England, constitutes a central object of 
attention and gaze for the whole circumjacent district, measured by a 
radius sometimes of 1 5 to 20 miles. Upon this consideration, Bentley 



66 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCEY 

able chambers of light — of light which at noonday, more 
effectually than any gloom, conceals the very brightest 
stars, rather than in labyrinths of darkness the thickest. 
What criminal is that who wishes to abscond from public 
5 justice ? Let him hurry into the frantic publicities of Lon- 
don, and by no means into the quiet privacies of the 
country. So, and upon the analogy of these cases, we 
may understand that, to make a strife overwhelming by a 
thousandfold to the feelings, it must not deal with gross 

lo material interests, but with such as rise into the world of 
dreams, and act upon the nerves through spiritual, and not 
through fleshly, torments. Mine, in the present case, rose 
suddenly, like a rocket, into their meridian altitude, by 
means of a hint furnished to my brother from a Scottish 

15 advocate's reveries. 

This advocate, who by his writings became the remote 
cause of so much affliction to my childhood, and struck a 
blow at the dignity of Gombroon that neither my brother 
nor all the forces of Tigrosylvania (my brother's kingdom) 

20 ever could have devised, was the celebrated James Burnett, 
better known to the English public by his judicial title of 
Lord Monboddo. The Burnetts of Monboddo, I have often 
heard, were a race distinguished for their intellectual accom- 
plishments through several successive generations ; and the 

25 judge in question was eminently so. It did him no injury 

instructs us to substitute as the true reading — " That on the sacred 
top," &c. Meantime, an actual experiment will demonstrate that there 
is no place so absolutely secret and hidden as the exposed summit of a 
mountain, 3500 feet high, in respect to an eye stationed in the valley 
immediately below. A whole party of men, women, horses, and even 
tents, looked at under those circumstances, is absolutely invisible unless 
by the aid of glasses : and it becomes evident that a murder might be 
committed on the bare open summit of such a mountain with more 
assurance of absolute secrecy than anywhere else in the whole sur- 
rounding district. 



INTRODUCTION TO THE WORLD OF STRIFE 67 

that many people regarded him as crazy. In England, at 
the beginning of the last century, we had a saying,^ in ref- 
erence to the Harveys of Lord Bristol's family, equally 
distinguished for wit, beauty, and eccentricity, that at the 
creation there had been three kinds of people made — viz., 5 
men, women, and Harveys ; and by all accounts something 
of the same kind might plausibly have been said in Scot- 
land about the Burnetts. Lord Monboddo's nieces, of 
whom one perished by falling from a precipice (and, as I 
have heard, through mere absence of mind, whilst musing 10 
upon a book which she carried in her hand), still sur- 
vive in the affection of many friends, through the interest 
attached to their intellectual gifts ; and Miss Burnett, the 
daughter of the judge, is remembered in all the memorials 
of Burns the poet, as the most beautiful, and otherwise 15 
the most interesting, of his female aristocratic friends 
in Edinburgh. Lord Monboddo himself trod an eccen- 
tric path in literature and philosophy ; and our tutor, who 
spent his whole life in reading, withdrawing himself in that 
way from the anxieties incident to a narrow income and a 20 
large family, found, no doubt, a vast fund of interesting 
suggestions in Lord M.'s "Dissertations on the Origin of 
Language " ; but to us he communicated only one section 
of the work. It was a long passage, containing some very 
useful illustrations of a Greek idiom ; useful I call them, 25 
because four years afterwards, when I had made great 
advances in my knowledge of Greek, they so appeared to 
me.^ But then, being scarcely seven years old, as soon as 

1 Which '' saying " is sometimes ascribed, I know not how truly, to 
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. 

2 It strikes me, upon second thoughts, that the particular idiom 
which Lord Monboddo illustrated as regarded the Greek language 
merits a momentary notice ; and for this reason — that it plays a part 
not at all less conspicuous or less delicate in the Latin. Here is an 



68 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

our tutor had finished his long extract from the Scottish 
judge's prelection, I could express my thankfulness for what 
I had received only by composing my features to a deeper 
solemnity and sadness than usual — no very easy task, I 
5 have been told ; otherwise, I really had not the remotest 
conception of what his lordship meant. I knew very well 
the thing called a te7ise; I knew even then by name the 
Aoristus Prwms, as a respectable tense in the Greek 

instance of its use in Greek, taken from the well-known Night-scene 

in the " Iliad " : — 

777^770-6 §e woi/uLevos ■r]Top. 



" and the heart of the shepherd rejoices " ; where the verb '^'nd-qae is in 
the indefinite or aorist tense, and is meant to indicate a condition of 
feeling not limited to any time whatever — past, present, or future. In 
Latin the force and elegance of this usage are equally impressive, if not 
more so. At this moment I remember two cases of this in Horace — 

1. " Raro antecedentem scelestum 

Desernit pede poena claudo " ; 

2. "saepe Diespiter 
Neglectus incesto addidit integrum." 

That is — "Oftentimes the Supreme Ruler, when treated with neglect, 
confounds or unites (not has united, as the tyro might fancy) the 
impure man with the upright in one common fate." 

Exceedingly common is this usage in Latin poetry, when the object 
is to generalise a remark — as not connected with one mode of time 
more than another. In reality, all three modes of time — past, pres- 
ent, future — are used (though not equally used) in all languages for 
this purpose of generalisation. Thus, 

1. ThQ future: as. Sapiens dominabitur astris. 

2. The present: as. Fortes fortuna juvat. 

3. Th.epast: as in the two cases cited from Horace. 

But this practice holds equally in English : as to the future and 
the present, nobody will doubt it ; and here is a case from the past — 
" The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God " ; not meaning 
that in some past time he hath said so, but that generally in all times 
he does say so, and will say so. 



INTRODUCTIOX TO THE WORLD OF STRIFE 69 

language. It (or shall we say he^^ was known to the whole 
Christian world by this distinction of Priinus ; clearly, 
therefore, there must be some low, vulgar tense in the back- 
ground, pretending also to the name of Aorist, but uni- 
versally scouted as the Aoristus Secundus, or Birmingham 5 
counterfeit. So that, unable as I was, from ignorance, to 
go along with Lord M.'s appreciation of his pretensions, 
still, had it been possible to meet an Aoristus Primus in 
the flesh, I should have bowed to him submissively, as 
to one apparently endowed with the mysterious rights 10 
of primogeniture. Not so my brother. Aorist, indeed ! 
Primus or Secundus, what mattered it .'' Paving-stones 
were something, brickbats were something, but an old 
superannuated tense ! That any grown man should trouble 
himself about f/iaf f Indeed, there was something extraor- 15 
dinary there. For it is not amongst the ordinary func- 
tions of lawyers to take charge of Greek ; far less, one 
might suppose, of lawyers in Scotland, where the general 
system of education has moved for two centuries upon a 
principle of slight regard to classical literature. Latin 20 
literature was very much neglected, and Greek nearly 
altogether. The more was the astonishment at finding a 
rare delicacy of critical instinct, as well as of critical 
sagacity, applied to the Greek idiomatic niceties by a 
Scottish lawyer — viz., that same eccentric judge, first 25 
made known to us by our tutor. 

To the majority of readers, meantime, at this day, Lord 
M. is memorable chiefly for his craze about the degeneracy 
of us poor moderns, when compared with the men of Pagan 
antiquity ; which craze itself might possibly not have been 30 
generally known, except in connection with the little skir- 
mish between him and Dr. Johnson, noticed in Boswell's 
account of the Doctor's Scottish tour. "Ah, doctor," said 
Lord M., upon some casual suggestion of that topic, " poor 



70 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

creatures are we of this eighteenth century ; our fathers 
were better men than we!" "Oh no, my lord," was John- 
son's reply ; "we are quite as strong as our forefathers, and 
a great deal wiser ! " Such a craze, however, is too widely 
5 diffused, and falls in with too obstinate a preconception ^ 

1 " Too obstinate a preconception " ; — Until the birth of geology, and 
of fossil palaeontology, concurring with vast strides ahead in the sci- 
ence of comparative anatomy, it is a well-established fact, that often- 
times the most scientific museum admitted as genuine fragments of 
the human osteology what in fact belonged to the gigantic brutes of 
our earth in her earliest stages of development. This mistake would go 
some way in accounting for the absurd disposition in all generations 
to view themselves as abridged editions of their forefathers. Added to 
which, as a separate cause of error, there can be little doubt, that 
intermingled with the human race there has at most periods of the 
world been a separate and Titanic race, such as the Anakim amongst 
the peoples of Palestine, the Cyclopean race diffused over the Mediter- 
ranean in the elder ages of Greece, and certain tribes amongst the 
Alps, known to Evelyn in his youth (about Cromwell's time) by an 
unpleasant travelling experience. These gigantic races, however, were 
no arguments for a degeneration amongst the rest of mankind. They 
were evidently a variety of man, co-existent with the ordinary races, 
but liable to be absorbed and gradually lost by intermarriage amongst 
other tribes of the ordinary standard. Occasional exhumations of such 
Titan skeletons would strengthen the common prejudice. They would 
be taken not for a local variety, but for an antediluvian or prehis- 
toric type, from which the present races of man had arisen by gradual 
degeneration. 

These cases of actual but misinterpreted experience, at the same 
time that they naturally must tend to fortify the popular prejudice, 
would also, by accounting for it, and engrafting it upon a reasonable 
origin, so far tend to take from it the reproach of a prejudice. Though 
erroneous, it would yet seem to us, in looking back upon it, a rational 
and even an inevitable opinion, having such plausible grounds to 
stand upon ; plausible, I mean, until science and accurate examina- 
tion of the several cases had begun to read them into a different con- 
struction. Yet, on the other hand, in spite of any colourable excuses 
that may be pleaded for this prejudice, it is pretty plain that, after 
all, there is in human nature a deep-laid predisposition to an obstinate 



INTRODUCTION TO THE WORLD OF STRIFE 71 

in the human race, which has in every age hypochondriacally 
regarded itself as under some fatal necessity of dwindling, 
much to have challenged public attention. As real para- 
doxes (spite of the idle meaning attached usually to the 
word paradox) have often no falsehood in them, so here, on 5 
the contrary, was a falsehood which had in it nothing 
paradoxical. It contradicted all the indications of history 
and experience, which uniformly had pointed in the very 
opposite direction ; and so far it ought to have been para- 
doxical (that is, revolting to popular opinion) ; but was not ic 

craze of this nature. Else why is it that, in every age alike, men have 
asserted or even assumed the downward tendency of the human 
race in all that regards moral qualities. For the physical degenera- 
tion of man there really were some apparent (though erroneous) 
arguments ; but for the moral degeneration, no argument at all, small 
or great. Yet, a bigotry of belief in this idle notion has always pre- 
vailed amongst moralists, Pagan alike and Christian. Horace, for 
example, informs us that 

" Aetas parentum, pejor avis, tulit 

Nos nequiores — mox daturos 

Progeniem vitiosiorem." 

The last generation was worse, it seems, than the penultimate, as the 
present is worse than the last. We, however, of the present, bad as we 
may be, shall be kept in countenance by the coming generation, which 
will prove much worse than ourselves. On the same precedent, all 
the sermons through the three last centuries, if traced back through 
decennial periods, so as to form thirty successive strata, will be found 
regularly claiming the precedency in wickedness for the immediate 
period of the writer. Upon which theories, as men ought physically to 
have dwindled long ago into pigmies, so, on the other hand, morally 
they must by this time have left Sodom and Gomorrah far behind. 
What a strange animal must man upon this scheme offer to our con- 
templation ; shrinking in size, by graduated process, through every 
century, until at last he would not rise an inch from the ground ; and, 
on the other hand, as regards villany, towering ever more and more up 
to the heavens. What a dwarf ! what a giant ! Why, the very crows 
would combine to destroy such a little monster. 



72 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

SO ; for it fell in with prevailing opinions, with the oldest, 
blindest, and most inveterate of human superstitions. If 
extravagant, yet to the multitude it did not see77i extravagant. 
So natural a craze, therefore, however baseless, would never 
5 have carried Lord Monboddo's name into that meteoric 
notoriety and atmosphere of astonishment which soon 
invested it in England. And, in that case, my childhood 
would have escaped the deadliest blight of mortification 
and despondency that could have been incident to a most 

lo morbid temperament concurring with a situation of vision- 
ary (yes ! if you please, of fantastic) but still of most real 
distress. 

How much it would have astonished Lord Monboddo to 
find himself made answerable — virtually made answerable, 

15 by the evidence of secret tears — for the misery of an 
unknown child in Lancashire. Yet night and day these 
silent memorials of suffering were accusing him as the 
founder of a wound that could not be healed. It happened 
that the several volumes of his work lay for weeks in the 

20 study of our tutor. Chance directed the eye of my brother, 
one day, upon that part of the work in which Lord M. 
unfolds his hypothesis that originally the human race had 
been a variety of the ape. On which hypothesis, by the 
way, Dr. Adam Clarke's substitution of ape for serpent, in 

25 translating the word nachash (the brute tempter of Eve), 
would have fallen to the ground, since this would simply 
have been the case of one human being tempting another. 
It followed inevitably, according to Lord M., however pain- 
ful it might be to human dignity, that, in this their early 

30 stage of brutality, men must» have had tails. My brother 
mused upon this reverie, and, in a few days, published an 
extract from some scoundrel's travels in Gombroon, accord- 
ing to which the Gombroonians had not yet emerged from 
this early condition of apedom. They, it seems, were still 



INTRODUCTION TO THE WORLD OF STRIFE J^ 

kommes caudati. Overwhelming to me and stunning was 
the ignominy of this horrible discovery. Lord M. had not 
overlooked the natural question, In what way did men get 
rid of their tails ? To speak the truth, they never would 
have got rid of them had they continued to run wild ; but 5 
growing civilisation introduced arts, and the arts introduced 
sedentary habits. By these it was, by the mere necessity of 
continually sitting down, that men gradually wore off their 
tails ! Well, and what should hinder the Gombroonians 
from sitting down ? Their tailors and shoemakers would and 10 
could, I hope, sit down, as well as those of Tigrosylvania. 
Why not ? Ay, but my brother had insisted already that 
they had no tailors, that they had no shoemakers ; which, 
then^ I did not care much about, as it merely put back the 
clock of our history — throwing us into an earlier, and there- 15 
fore, perhaps, into a more warlike stage of society. But, as 
the case stood now, this want of tailors, &c., showed clearly 
that the process of sitting down, so essential to the ennobling 
of the race, had not commenced. My brother, with an air 
of consolation, suggested that I might even now, without an 20 
hour's delay, compel the whole nation to sit down for six 
hours a day, which would always "make a beginning." 
But the truth would remain as before — viz., that I was the 
king of a people that had tails ; and the slow, slow process 
by which, in a course of many centuries, their posterity 25 
might rub them off, a hope of vintages never to be enjoyed 
by any generations that are yet heaving in sight — thatwdiS 
to me the worst form of despair. 

Still there was one resource: if I "didn't like it" — 
meaning the state of things in Gombroon — I might " abdi- 30 
cate." Yes, I knew that. I might abdicate ; and, once 
having cut the connection between myself and the poor 
abject islanders, I might seem to have no further interest 
in the degradation that affected them. After such a 



74 SELECTIONS EROM DE QUINCE Y 

disruption between us, what was it to me if they had even 
three tails apiece ? Ah, that was fine talking ; but this con- 
nection with my poor subjects had grown up so slowly and 
so genially, in the midst of struggles so constant against the 

5 encroachments of my brother and his rascally people ; we 
had suffered so much together; and the filaments connecting 
them with my heart were so aerially fine and fantastic, but 
for that reason so inseverable, that I abated nothing of my 
anxiety on their account ; making this difference only in my 

10 legislation and administrative cares, that I pursued them 
more in a spirit of despondency, and retreated more shyly 
from communicating them. It was in vain that my brother 
counselled me to dress my people in the Roman toga, as the 
best means of concealing their ignominious appendages : if 

15 he meant this as comfort, it was none to me ; the disgrace 
lay in the fact, not in its publication ; and, in my heart, 
though I continued to honour Lord Monboddo (whom I 
heard my guardian also daily delighting to honour) as a 
good Grecian, yet secretly I cursed the Aoristus Primus, as 

20 the indirect occasion of a misery which was not and could 
not be comprehended. 

From this deep degradation of myself and my people, I 
was drawn off at intervals to contemplate a different mode 
of degradation affecting two persons, twin sisters, whom I 

25 saw intermittingly ; sometimes once a-week, sometimes fre- 
quently on each separate day. You have heard, reader, of 
pariahs. The pathos of that great idea possibly never 
reached you. Did it ever strike you how far that idea had 
extended ? Do not fancy it peculiar to Hindostan. Before 

30 Delhi was, before Agra, or Lahore, might the pariah say, I 
was. The most interesting, if only as the most mysterious, 
race of ancient days, the Pelasgi, that overspread, in early 
times of Greece, the total Mediterranean — a race distin- 
guished for beauty and for intellect, and sorrowful beyond 



INTRODUCTION TO THE WORLD OF STRIFE 75 

all power of man to read the cause that could lie deep 
enough for so imperishable an impression — they were 
pariahs. The Jews that, in the twenty-eighth chapter of 
Deuteronomy, were cursed in a certain contingency with a 
sublimer curse than ever rang through the passionate wrath 5 
of prophecy, and that afterwards, in Jerusalem, cursed them- 
selves, voluntarily taking on their own heads, and on the 
heads of their children's children for ever and ever, the 
guilt of innocent blood — they are pariahs to this hour. 
Yet for them there has ever shone a sullen light of hope. 10 
The gipsies, for whom no conscious or acknowledged hope 
burns through the mighty darkness that surrounds them — 
they are pariahs of pariahs. Lepers were a race of medi- 
aeval pariahs, rejected of men, that now have gone to rest. 
But travel into the forests of the Pyrenees, and there you 15 
will find their modern representatives in the Cagots. Are 
these Pyrenean Cagots Pagans ? Not at all. They are 
good Christians. Wherefore, then, that low door in the 
Pyrenean churches, through which the Cagots are forced 
to enter, and which, obliging them to stoop almost to the 20 
ground, is a perpetual memento of their degradation ? 
Wherefore is it that men of pure Spanish blood will hold 
no intercourse with the Cagot 1 Wherefore is it that even 
the shadow of a Cagot, if it falls across a fountain, is held 
to have polluted that fountain 1 All this points to some 25 
dreadful taint of guilt, real or imputed, in ages far 
remote.^ 

1 The name and history of the Pyrenean Cagots are equally obscure. 
Some have supposed that, during the period of the Gothic warfare with 
the Moors, the Cagots were a Christian tribe that betrayed the Chris- 
tian cause and interests at a critical moment. But all is conjecture. 
As to the name, Southey has somewhere offered a possible interpreta- 
tion of it ; but it struck me as far from felicitous, and not what might 
have been expected from Southey, whose vast historical research and 
commanding talent should naturally have unlocked this most mysterious 



76 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

But in ages far nearer to ourselves, nay, in our own 
generation, and our own land, are many pariahs, sitting 
amongst us all, nay, oftentimes sitting (yet not recognised 
for what they really are) at good men's tables. How gen- 

5 eral is that sensuous dulness, that deafness of the heart, 
which the Scriptures attribute to human beings ! '* Having 
ears, they hear not ; and, seeing, they do not understand." 
In the very act of facing or touching a dreadful object, 
they will utterly deny its existence. Men say to me daily, 

10 when I ask them, in passing, " Anything in this morning's 
paper.?" "Oh no, nothing at all." And, as I never had 
any other answer, I am bound to suppose that there never 
was anything in a daily newspaper ; and, therefore, that 
the horrible burden of misery and of change which a cen- 

15 tury accumulates as its facif or total result, has not been 
distributed at all amongst its thirty-six thousand five hun- 
dred and twenty-five days : every day, it seems, was sepa- 
rately a blank day, yielding absolutely nothing — what 
children call a deaf nut, offering no kernel ; and yet the 

20 total product lias caused angels to weep and tremble. 
Meantime, when I come to look at the newspaper with my 
own eyes, I am astonished at the misreport of my inform- 
ants. Were there no other section in it than simply that 
allotted to the police reports, oftentimes I stand aghast at 

25 the revelations there made of human life and the human 
heart — at its colossal guilt, and its colossal misery ; at the 
suffering which oftentimes throws its shadow over palaces, 

of modern secrets, if any unlocking does yet lie within the resources of 
human skill and combining power, now that so many ages divide 
us from the original steps of the case. I may here mention, as a fact 
accidentally made known to myself, and apparently not known to 
Southey, that the Cagots, under a name very slightly altered, are 
found in France also, as well as Spain ; and in provinces of France 
that have no connection at all with Spain. 



INTRODUCTION TO THE WORLD OF STRIFE 77 

and the grandeur of mute endurance which sometimes glori- 
fies a cottage. Here transpires the dreadful truth of what 
is going on for ever under the thick curtains of domestic 
life, close behind us, and before us, and all around us. 
Newspapers are evanescent, and are too rapidly recurrent, 5 
and people see nothing great in what is familiar, nor can ever 
be trained to read the silent and the shadowy in what, for 
the moment, is covered with the babbling garrulity of day- 
light. I suppose now that, in the next generation after that 
w^hich is here concerned, had any neighbour of our tutor 10 
been questioned on the subject of a domestic tragedy, which 
travelled through its natural stages in a leisurely way, and 

under the eyes of good Dr. S , he would have replied, 

"Tragedy ! oh, sir, nothing of the kind ! You have been 
misled ; the gentleman rhust lie under a mistake : perhaps it 15 
was in the next street." No, it was not in the next street ; 
and the gentleman does not lie under a mistake, or, in fact, 
lie at all. The simple truth is, blind old neighbour, that 
you, being rarely in the house, and, when there, only in one 
particular room, saw no more of what was hourly going on, 20 
than if you had been residing with the Sultan of Bokhara. 
But I, a child between seven and eight years old, had access 
everywhere. I was privileged, and had the e7itree even of 
the female apartments ; one consequence of which was, that 
I put this and that together. A number of syllables, that 25 
each for itself separately might have meant nothing at all, 
did yet, when put together, through weeks and months, read 
for my eyes into sentences as deadly and significant as Tekel^ 
upharsin. And another consequence was, that being, on 
account of my age, nobody at all, or very near it, I some- 30 
times witnessed things that perhaps it had not been meant 
for anybody to witness, or perhaps some half-conscious 
negligence overlooked my presence. " Saw things ! What 
was it now ? Was it a man at midnight, with a dark lantern 



78 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

and a six-barrel revolver ? " No that was not in the least 
like what I saw : it was a great deal more like what I will 
endeavour to describe. Imagine two young girls, of what 
exact age I really do not know, but apparently from twelve 
5 to fourteen, twins, remarkably plain in person and features, 
unhealthy, and obscurely reputed to be idiots. Whether 
they really were such was more than I knew, or could 
devise any plan for learning. Without dreaming of any- 
thing unkind or uncourteous, my original impulse had 

10 been to say, " If you please, are you idiots ? " But I felt 
that such a question had an air of coarseness about it, 
though, for my own part, I had long reconciled myself 
to being called an idiot by my brother. There was, how- 
ever, a further difficulty : breathed as a gentle, murmuring 

15 whisper, the question might possibly be reconciled to an 
indulgent ear as confidential and tender. Even to take a 
liberty with those you love, is to show your trust in their 
affection ; but, alas ! these poor girls were deaf ; and to 
have shouted out, " Are you idiots, if you please ? " in a 

20 voice that would have rung down three flights of stairs, 
promised (as I felt, without exactly seeing why) a dreadful 
exaggeration to whatever incivility might, at any rate, attach 
to the question ; and some did attach, that was clear even 
if warbled through an air of Cherubini's, and accompanied 

25 on the flute. Perhaps they were not idiots, and only seemed 
to be such from the slowness of apprehension naturally con- 
nected with deafness. That I saw them but seldom, arose 
from their peculiar position in the family. Their father had 
no private fortune ; his income from the church was very 

30 slender ; and, though considerably increased by the allow- 
ance made for us, his two pupils, still, in a great town, and 
with so large a family, it left him little room for luxuries. 
Consequently, he never had more than two servants, and at 
times only one. Upon this plea rose the scheme of the 



INTRODUCTION TO THE WORLD OF STRIFE 79 

mother for employing these two young girls in menial offices 
of the household economy. One reason for that was, that 
she thus indulged her dislike for them, which she took no 
pains to conceal ; and thus, also, she withdrew them from 
the notice of strangers. In this way, it happened that I saw 5 
them myself but at uncertain intervals. Gradually, how- 
ever, I came to be aware of their forlorn condition, to pity 
them, and to love them. The poor twins were undoubtedly 
plain, to the degree which is called, by unfeeling people, ugli- 
ness. They were also deaf, as I have said, and they were 10 
scrofulous ; one of them was disfigured by the small-pox ; 
they had glimmering eyes, red, like the eyes of ferrets, and 
scarcely half-open ; and they did not walk so much as 
stumble along. There, you have the worst of them. Now, 
hear something on the other side. What first won my pity 15 
was, their affection for each other, united to their constant 
sadness ; secondly, a notion which had crept into my head, 
probably derived from something said in my presence by 
elder people, that they were destined to an early death ; 
and, lastly, the incessant persecutions of their mother. This 20 
lady belonged, by birth, to a more elevated rank than that of 
her husband, and she was remarkably well-bred as regarded 
her manners. But she had probably a weak understanding : 
she was shrewish in her temper ; was a severe economist ; 
a merciless exactor of what she viewed as duty; and, in per- 25 
secuting her two unhappy daughters, though she yielded 
blindly to her unconscious dislike of them, as creatures that 
disgraced her, she was not aware, perhaps, of ever having 
put forth more expressions of anger and severity than were 
absolutely required to rouse the constitutional torpor of 3c 
her daughters' nature ; and where disgust has once rooted 
itself, and been habitually expressed in tones of harshness, 
the mere sight of the hateful object mechanically calls forth 
the eternal tones of anger, without distinct consciousness 



8o SELECTIONS FROM BE QUINCE Y 

or separate intention in the speaker. Loud speaking, be- 
sides, or even shouting, was required by the deafness of the 
two girls. From anger so constantly discharging its thun- 
ders, naturally they did not show open signs of recoiling ; 
5 but that they felt it deeply, may be presumed from their sen- 
sibility to kindness. My own experience showed that ; for, 
as often as I met them, we exchanged kisses ; and my wish 
had always been to beg them, if they really 7uere idiots, not 
to mind it, since I should not like them the less on that 

10 account. This wish of mine never came to utterance ; 
but not the less they were aware, by my manner of saluta- 
tion, that one person at least, amongst those who might be 
considered strangers, did not find anything repulsive about 
them ; and the pleasure they felt was expressed broadly 

1 5 upon their kindly faces. 

Such was the outline of their position ; and, that being 
explained, what I saw was simply this ; it composed a silent 
and symbolic scene, a momentary interlude in dumb show, 
which interpreted itself and settled for ever in my recollec- 

2o tion, as if it had prophesied and interpreted the event which 
soon followed. They were resting from toil, and both sitting 
down. This had lasted for perhaps ten or fifteen minutes. 
Suddenly from below-stairs the voice of angry summons rang 
up to their ears. Both rose in an instant, as if the echoing 

25 scourge of some avenging Tisiphone were uplifted above 
their heads ; both opened their arms ; fiung them round 
each other's necks ; and then, unclasping them, parted to 
their separate labours. This was my last rememberable 
interview with the two sisters ; in a week both were corpses. 

30 They had died, I believe, of scarlatina, and very nearly at 
the same moment. 

But surely it was no matter for grief, that the two scrof- 
ulous idiots were dead and buried. Oh no ! Call them 



INTRODUCTION TO THE WORLD OF STRIFE 8i 

idiots at your pleasure, serfs, or slaves, strulbrugs ^ or pariahs 
• — their case was certainly not worsened by being booked for 
places in the grave. Idiocy, for anything I know, may, in 
that vast kingdom, enjoy a natural precedency ; scrofula and 
leprosy may have some mystic privilege in a coffin ; and the 5 
pariahs of the upper earth may form the aristocracy of the 
dead. That the idiots, real or reputed, were at rest — that 
their warfare was accomplished — might, if a man happened 
to know enough, be interpreted as a glorious festival. The 
sisters were seen no more upon staircases or in bedrooms, lo 
and deadly silence had succeeded to the sound of continual 
uproars. Memorials of them were none surviving on earth. 

'^^' Stnilbrtigs'' : — Hardly strulbrugs, will be the thought of the 
learned reader, who knows that yoting women could not be strulbrugs ; 
since the true strulbrug was one who, from base fear of dying, had 
lingered on into an old age omnivorous of every genial or vital impulse. 
The strulbrug of Swift (and Swift, being his horrid creator, ought to 
understand his own horrid creation) was a wreck, a shell, that had 
been burned hollow, and cancered by the fierce furnace of life. His 
clock-work was gone, or carious ; only some miserable fragment of a 
pendulum continued to oscillate paralytically from mere incapacity of 
anything so abrupt, and therefore so vigorous, as a decided Halt ! 
However, the use of this dreadful word may be reasonably extended 
to the young who happen to have become essentially old in misery. 
Intensity of a suffering existence may compensate the want of extension ; 
and a boundless depth of misery may be a transformed expression for a 
boundless duration of misery. The most aged person, to all appear- 
ance, that ever came under my eyes, was an infant — hardly eight 
months old. He was the illegitimate son of a poor idiot girl, w'ho had 
herself been shamefully ill-treated ; and the poor infant, falling under 
the care of an enraged grandmother, who felt herself at once burdened 
and disgraced, was certainly not better treated. He was dying, when I 
saw him, of a lingering malady, with features expressive of frantic 
misery; and it seemed to me that he looked at least three centuries old. 
One might have fancied him one of Swift's strulbrugs, that, through long 
attenuation and decay, had dwindled back into infancy, with one organ 
only left perfect — the organ of fear and misery. 



82 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

Not t/iey it was that furnished mementoes of themselves. 
The mother it was, the father it was — that mother who by 
persecution had avenged the wounds offered to her pride ; 
that father who had tolerated this persecution ; — she it was, 
5 he it was, that by the altered glances of her haunted eye, 
that by the altered character of his else stationary habits, 
had revived for me a spectacle, once real, of visionary twin 
sisters, moving for ever up and down the stairs — sisters, 
patient, humble, silent, that snatched convulsively at a 

lo loving smile, or loving gesture, from a child, as at some 
message of remembrance from God, whispering to them, 
" You are not forgotten " — sisters born apparently for the 
single purpose of suffering, whose trials, it is true, were 
over, and could not be repeated, but (alas for her who had 

15 been their cause!) could not be recalled. Her face grew 
thin, her eye sunken and hollow, after the death of her 
daughters ; and, meeting her on the staircase, I sometimes 
fancied that she did not see me so much as something 
beyond me. Did any misfortune befall her after this 

20 double funeral } Did the Nemesis that waits upon the 
sighs of children pursue her steps ? Not apparently : exter- 
nally, things went well ; her sons were reasonably pros- 
perous ; her handsome daughter — for she had a more 
youthful daughter, who really 7aas handsome — continued 

25 to improve in personal attractions; and some years after, 
I have heard, she married happily. But from herself, so 
long as I continued to know her, the altered character of 
countenance did not depart, nor the gloomy eye, that 
seemed to converse with secret and visionary objects. 

30 This result from the irrevocable past was not altogether 
confined to herself. It is one evil attached to chronic and 
domestic oppression, that it draws into its vortex, as unwill- 
ing, or even as loathing, co-operators, others who either see 
but partially the wrong they are abetting, or, in cases where 



INTRODUCTION TO THE WORLD OF STRIFE 83 

they do see it, are unable to make head against it, through 
the inertia of their own nature, or through the coercion of 
circumstances. Too clearly, by the restless irritation of 
his manner for some time after the children's death, their 
father testified, in a language not fully, perhaps, perceived 5 
by himself, or meant to be understood by others, that to his 
inner conscience he also was not clear of blame. Had he 
then in any degree sanctioned the injustice which some- 
times he must have witnessed ? Far from it : he had been 
roused from his habitual indolence into energetic expres- 10 
sions of anger : he had put an end to the wrong, when it 
came openly before him : I had myself heard him say on 
many occasions, with patriarchal fervour, "Woman, they 
are your children, and God made them. Show mercy to 
them^ as you expect it for yourself." But he must have 15 
been aware, that, for any three instances of tyrannical 
usage that fell under his notice, at least five hundred would 
escape it. That was the sting of the case — that was its 
poisonous aggravation. But with a nature that sought for 
peace before all things, in this very worst of its aggra- 20 
vations was found a morbid cure — the effectual tempta- 
tion to wilful blindness and forgetfulness. The sting 
became the palliation of the wrong, and the poison became 
its anodyne. For together with the five hundred hidden 
wrongs, arose the necessity that vmst be hidden. Could 25 
he be pinned on, morning, noon, and night, to his wife's 
apron ? And if not, what else should he do by angry 
interferences at chance times, than add special vindictive 
impulses to those of general irritation and dislike ? Some 
truth there was in this, it cannot be denied : innumerable 30 
cases arise, in which a man the most just is obliged, in some 
imperfect sense, to connive at injustice ; his chance experi- 
ence must convince him that injustice is continually going 
on; and yet, in any attempt to intercept it or to check it, 



$4 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

he is met and baffled by the insuperable obstacles of house- 
hold necessities. Dr. S , therefore, surrendered him- 
self, as under a coercion that was ?toJie of his creating, to 
a passive acquiescence and a blindness that soothed his 
5 constitutional indolence ; and he reconciled his feelings 
to a tyranny which he tolerated, under some self-flattering 
idea of submitting with resignation to a calamity that he 
suffered. 

Some years after this, I read the " Agamemnon " of 

10 ^schylus ; and then, in the prophetic horror with which 
Cassandra surveys the regal abode in Mycenae, destined to 
be the scene of murders so memorable through the long 
traditions of the Grecian stage, murders that, many centuries 
after all the parties to them — perpetrators, sufferers, aven- 

15 gers — had become dust and ashes, kindled again into 
mighty life through a thousand years upon the vast theatres 
of Athens and Rome, I retraced the horrors, not prophetic 
but memorial, with which I myself had invested that hum- 
ble dwelling of Dr. S ; and read again, repeated in 

20 visionary proportions, the sufferings which there had dark- 
ened the days of people known to myself through two dis- 
tinct successions — not, as was natural to expect, of parents 
first, and then of children, but inversely of children and 
parents. Manchester was not Mycenae. No, but by many 

25 degrees nobler. In some of the features most favourable 
to tragic effects, it was so ; and wanted only those idealis- 
ing advantages for withdrawing mean details which are in 
the gift of distance and hazy antiquity. Even at that day 
Manchester was far larger, teeming with more and with 

30 stronger hearts; and it contained a population the most 
energetic even in the modern world — how much more so, 
therefore, by comparison with any race in ancient Greece, 
inevitably rendered effeminate by dependence too generally 
upon slaves. Add to this superior energy in Lancashire, 



INTRODUCTION TO THE WORLD OF STRIFE 85 

the immeasurably profounder feelings generated by the 
mysteries which stand behind Christianity, as compared 
with the shallow mysteries that stood behind Paganism, 
and it would be easy to draw the inference, that, in the 
capacity for the infinite and the impassioned, for horror 5 
and for pathos, Mycenae could have had no pretensions to 
measure herself against Manchester. Not that I had drawn 
such an inference myself. Why should I ? there being noth- 
ing to suggest the points in which the two cities differed, 
but only the single one in which they agreed — viz., the 10 
dusky veil that overshadowed in both the noonday trage- 
dies haunting their household recesses ; which veil was 
raised only to the gifted eyes of a Cassandra, or to eyes 
that, like my own, had experimentally become acquainted 
with them as facts. Pitiably mean is he that measures the 15 
relations of such cases by the scenical apparatus of purple 
and gold. That which never has been apparelled in royal 
robes, and hung with theatrical jewels, is but suffering from 
an accidental fraud, having the same right to them that 
any similar misery can have, or calamity upon an equal 20 
scale. These proportions are best measured from the fathom- 
ing ground of a real uncounterfeit sympathy. 

I have mentioned already that we had four male guardians 
(a fifth being my mother). These four were B., E., G., and 
H. The two consonants, B. and G., gave us little trouble. 25 
G., the wisest of the whole band, lived at a distance of 
more than one hundred miles : him, therefore, we rarely 
saw ; but B., living within four miles of Greenhay, washed 
his hands of us, by inviting us, every now and then, to 
spend a few days at his house. 30 

At this house, which stood in the country, there was a 
family of amiable children, who were more skilfully trained 
in their musical studies than at that day was usual. They 



86 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

sang the old English glees and madrigals, and correctly 
enough for me, who, having, even at that childish age, a 
preternatural sensibility to music, had also, as may be sup- 
posed, the most entire want of musical knowledge. No 
5 blunders could do much to mar 7?iy pleasure. There first I 
heard the concertos of Corelli ; but also, which far more 
profoundly affected me, a few selections from Jomelli and 
Cimarosa. With Handel I had long been familiar, for the 
famous chorus-singers of Lancashire sang continually at 

lo churches the most effective parts from his chief oratorios. 
Mozart was yet to come ; for, except perhaps at the opera 
in London, even at this time his music was most imper- 
fectly diffused through England. But, above all, a thing 
which to my dying day I could never forget, at the house 

15 of this guardian I heard sung a long canon of Cherubini's. 
Forty years later, I heard it again, and better sung ; but 
at that time I needed nothing better. It was sung by four 
male voices, and rose into a region of thrilling passion, 
such as my heart had always dimly craved and hungered 

20 after, but which now first interpreted itself, as a physical 
possibility, to my ear. 

My brother did not share my inexpressible delight ; his 
taste ran in a different channel ; and the arrangements of 
the house did not meet his approbation ; particularly this, 

25 that either Mrs. B. herself, or else the governess, was always 
present when the young ladies joined our society, which my 
brother considered particularly vulgar ; since natural pro- 
priety and decorum should have whispered to an old lady 
that a young gentleman might have '' things " to say to her 

30 daughters which he could not possibly intend for the general 
ear of eavesdroppers — things tending to the confidential or 
the sentimental, which none but a shameless old lady would 
seek to participate ; by that means compelling a young man 
to talk as loud as if he' were addressing a mob at Charing 



INTRODUCTION TO THE WORLD OF STRIFE 87 

Cross, or reading the Riot Act. There were other out-of- 
door amusements, amongst which a swing — which I men- 
tion for the sake of illustrating the passive obedience which 
my brother levied upon me, either through my conscience, 
as mastered by his doctrine of primogeniture, or, as in this $ 
case, through my sensibility to shame under his taunts of 
cowardice. It was a most ambitious swing, ascending to a 
height beyond any that I have since seen in fairs or public 
gardens. Horror was at my heart regularly as the swing 
reached its most aerial altitude ; for the oily, swallow-like 10 
fluency of the swoop downwards threatened always to make 
me sick, in which case it is probable that I must have relaxed 
my hold of the ropes, and have been projected, with fatal vio- 
lence, to the ground. But, in defiance of all this miserable 
panic, I continued to swing whenever he tauntingly invited 15 
me. It was well that my brother's path in life soon ceased 
to coincide with my own ; else I should infallibly have 
broken my neck in confronting perils which brought me 
neither honour nor profit, and in accepting defiances 
which, issue how they might, won self-reproach from my- 20 
self, and sometimes a gaiety of derision from him. One 
only of these defiances I declined. There was a horse 
of this same guardian B.'s, who always, after listening 
to Cherubini's music, grew irritable to excess ; and, if 
anybody mounted him, would seek relief to his wounded 25 
feelings in kicking, more or less violently, for an hour. 
This habit endeared him to my brother, who acknowledged 
to a propensity of the same amiable kind ; protesting that 
an abstract desire of kicking seized him always after hear- 
ing good performers on particular instruments, especially 30 
the bagpipes. Of kicking ? But of kicking what or who7n ? 
I fear of kicking the venerable public collectively, creditors 
without exception, but also as many of the debtors as might 
be found at large ; doctors of medicine more especially, but 



88 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

with no absolute immunity for the majority of their patients ; 
Jacobins, but not the less Anti-Jacobins ; every Calvinist, 
which seems reasonable ; but then also, which is intolerable, 
every Arminian. Is philosophy able to account for this mor- 
5 bid affection, and particularly when it takes the restricted 
form (as sometimes it does, in the bagpipe case), of seeking 
furiously to kick the piper, instead of paying him ? In this 
case, my brother was urgent with me to mount e?i croupe 
behind himself. But, weak as I usually was, this proposal I 

10 resisted as an immediate suggestion of the fiend ; for I had 
heard, and have since known proofs of it, that a horse, when 
he is ingeniously vicious, sometimes has the power, in lashing 
out, of curving round his hoofs, so as to lodge them, by way 
of indorsement, in the small of his rider's back ; and, of 

15 course, he would have an advantage for such a purpose, in 
the case of a rider sitting on the crupper. That sole invita- 
tion I persisted in declining. 

A young gentleman had joined us as a fellow-student 
under the care of our tutor. He was an only son ; indeed, 

20 the only child of an amiable widow, whose love and hopes 
all centred in him. He was destined to inherit several sepa- 
rate estates, and a great deal had been done to spoil him by 
indulgent aunts ; but his good natural disposition defeated 
all these efforts ; and, upon joining us, he proved to be a 

25 very amiable boy, clever, quick at learning, and abundantly 
courageous. In the summer months, his mother usually took 
a house out in the country, sometimes on one side of Man- 
chester, sometimes on another. At these rusticating seasons, 
he had often much further to come than ourselves, and on 

30 that account he rode horseback. Generally it was a fierce 
mountain-pony that he rode ; and it was worth while to 
cultivate the pony's acquaintance, for the sake of understand- 
ing the extent to which the fiend can sometimes incarnate 
himself in a horse. I do not trouble the reader with any 



INTRODUCTION TO THE WORLD OF STRIFE 89 

account of his tricks, and drolleries, and scoundrelisms ; but 
this I may mention, that he had the propensity ascribed 
many centuries ago to the Scandinavian horses for sharing 
and practically asserting his share in the angry passions of 
a battle. He would fight, or attempt to fight, on his rider's 5 
side, by biting, rearing, and suddenly wheeling round, for 
the purpose of lashing out when he found himself within 
kicking range.^ This little monster was coal-black ; and, in 
virtue of his carcase, would not have seemed very formid- 
able ; but his head made amends — it was the head of a 10 
buffalo, or of a bison, and his vast jungle of mane was 
the mane of a lion. His eyes, by reason of this intol- 
erable and unshorn mane, one did not often see, except 
as lights that sparkled in the rear of a thicket ; but, once 
seen, they were not easily forgotten, for their malignity was 15 
diabolic. A few miles more or less being a matter of indif- 
ference to one who was so well mounted, O. would some- 
times ride out with us to the field of battle ; and, by 
manoeuvring so as to menace the enemy on the flanks, 
in skirmishes he did good service. But at length came 20 
a day of pitched battle. The enemy had mustered in 
unusual strength, and would certainly have accomplished 
the usual result of putting us to flight with more than 
usual ease, but, under the turn which things took, their 
very numbers aided their overthrow, by deepening their 25 
confusion. O. had, on this occasion, accompanied us ; 
and, as he had hitherto taken no very decisive part in 
the war, confining himself to distant " demonstrations," 
the enemy did not much regard his presence in the 
field. This carelessness threw them into a dense mass, 30 
upon which my brother'^ rapid eye saw instantly the 

1 This was a manoeuvre regularly taught to the Austrian cavalry in 
the middle of the last century, as a ready way of opening the doors of 
cottages. 



90 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

opportunity offered for operating most effectually by a 
charge. O. saw it too ; and happening to have his spurs 
on, he complied cheerfully with my brother's suggestion. 
He had the advantage of a slight descent : the wicked 
5 pony went down " with a will " : his echoing hoofs drew 
the general gaze upon him : his head, his leonine mane, 
his diabolic eyes, did the rest ; and in a moment the 
whole hostile array had broken, and was in rapid flight 
across the brick-fields. I leave the reader to judge 

10 whether "Te Deum " would be sung on that night. A 
Gazette Extraordinary was issued ; and my brother had 
really some reason for his assertion, "that in conscience 
he could not think of comparing Cannae to this smashing 
defeat " ; since at Cannae many brave men had refused 

IS to fly — the consul himself, Terentius Varro, amongst 
them ; but, in the present rout, there was no Terentius 
Varro — everybody fled. 

The victory, indeed, considered in itself, was complete. 
But it had consequences which we had not looked for. In 

20 the ardour of our conflict, neither my brother nor myself 
had remarked a stout, square-built man, mounted on an 
uneasy horse, who sat quietly in his saddle as spectator 
of the battle, and, in fact, as the sole non-combatant 
present. This man, however, had been observed by O., 

2$ both before and after his own brilliant charge ; and, by 
the description, there could be no doubt that it had 
been our guardian B., as also, by the description of the 
horse, we could as little doubt that he had been mounted 
on Cherubini. My brother's commentary was in a tone 
^ 30 of bitter complaint, that so noble an opportunity should 
have been lost for strengthening O.'s charge. But the 
consequences of this incident were graver than we antici- 
pated. A general board of our guardians, vowels and 
consonants, was summoned to investigate the matter. The 



INTRODUCTION TO THE WORLD OF STRIFE 



91 



origin of the feud, or "war," as my brother called it, was 
inquired into. As well might the war of Troy or the pur- 
ser's accounts from the Argonautic expedition have been 
overhauled. Ancient night and chaos had closed over the 
" incunabula belli " ; and that point was given up in despair. 5 
But what hindered a general pacification, no matter in how 
many wrongs the original dispute had arisen ? Who stopped 
the way which led to peace ? Not we, was our firm declara- 
tion ; we were most pacifically inclined, and ever had been ; 
we were, in fact, little saints. But the enemy could not be 10 
brought to any terms of accommodation. " That we will 
try," said the vowel amongst our guardians, Mr. E. He, 
being a magistrate, had naturally some weight with the pro- 
prietors of the cotton factory. The foremen of the several 
floors were summoned, and gave it as their humble opinion 15 
that we, the aristocratic party in the war, were as bad as 
the sansculottes — "not a pin to choose between us." Well, 
but no matter for the past : could any plan be devised for 
a pacific future ? Not easily. The work-people were so 
thoroughly independent of their employers, and so careless 20 
of their displeasure, that finally this only settlement was 
available, as wearing any promise of permanence — viz., 
that we should alter our hours, so as not to come into 
collision with the exits or returns of the boys. 

Under this arrangement, a sort of hollow armistice pre- 25 
vailed for some time ; but it was beginning to give way, 
when suddenly an internal change in our own home put an 
end to the war for ever. My brother, amongst his many 
accomplishments, was distinguished for his skill in drawing. 
Some of his sketches had been shown to Mr. de Louther- 30 
bourg, an academician well known in those days, esteemed 
even in these days, after he has been dead for forty or fifty 
years, and personally a distinguished favourite with the king 
(George III). He pronounced a very flattering opinion upon 



92 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

my brother's promise of excellence. This being known, a 
fee of a thousand guineas was offered to Mr. L. by the 
guardians ; and finally that gentleman took charge of my 
brother as a pupil. Now, therefore, my brother, King of 

5 Tigrosylvania, scourge of Gombroon, separated from me ; 
and, as it turned out, for ever. I never saw him again ; 
and, at Mr. de L.'s house in Hammersmith, before he had 
completed his sixteenth year, he died of typhus fever. And 
thus it happened that a little gold-dust skilfully applied put 

10 an end to wars that else threatened to extend into a Cartha- 
ginian length. In one week's time 

" Hi motus animorum atque haec certamina tanta 
Pulveris exigui jactu compressa quierunt." 



A MEETING WITH LAMB 

Amongst the earliest literary acquaintances I made was 
that with the inimitable Charles Lamb : inimitable, I say, 
but the word is too limited in its meaning ; for, as is said 
of Milton in that well-known life of him attached to all 
common editions of the *' Paradise Lost " (Fenton's, I think), 5 
"in both senses he was above imitation." Yes; it was as 
impossible to the moral nature of Charles Lamb that he 
should imitate another as, in an intellectual sense, it was 
impossible that any other should successfully imitate him. 
To write with patience even, not to say genially, for Charles 10 
Lamb it was a very necessity of his constitution that he 
should write from his own wayward nature ; and that nature 
was so peculiar that no other man, the ablest at mimicry, 
could counterfeit its voice. But let me not anticipate ; for 
these were opinions about Lamb which I had not when I 15 
first knew him, nor could have had by any reasonable title. 
" Elia," be it observed, the exquisite ** Elia," was then 
unborn ; Lamb had as yet published nothing to the world 
which proclaimed him in his proper character of a most 
original man of genius ^ : at best, he could have been 20 

'^ '■^ Man of genius'''' . . . "man of talent''^: — I have, in another 
place, laid down what I conceive to be the true ground of distinction 
between ^^wmj and talent; which lies mainly in this — that genius is 
intellectual power impregnated with the moral nature, and expresses a 
synthesis of the active in man with his original organic capacity of 
pleasure and pain. Hence the very word genius, because the genial 
nature in its whole organization is expressed and involved in it. 

93 



94 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

thought no more than a man of talent — and of talent 
moving in a narrow path, with a power rather of mimick- 
ing the quaint and the fantastic than any large grasp over 
catholic beauty. And, therefore, it need not offend the most 
5 doting admirer of Lamb as he is now known to us, a 
brilliant star for ever fixed in the firmament of English 
Literature, that I acknowledge myself to have sought his 
acquaintance rather under the reflex honour he had enjoyed 
of being known as Coleridge's friend than for any which 

10 he yet held directly and separately in his own person. My 
earliest advances towards this acquaintance had an inaus- 
picious aspect ; and it may be worth while reporting the 
circumstances, for they were characteristic of Charles 
Lamb ; and the immediate result was — that we parted, 

15 not perhaps (as Lamb says of his philosophic friend R. 
and the Parisians) "with mutual contempt," but at least 
with coolness ; and, on my part, with something that might 
have even turned to disgust — founded, however, entirely 
on my utter misapprehension of Lamb's character and his 

20 manners — had it not been for the winning goodness of 
Miss Lamb, before which all resentment must have melted 
in a moment. 

It was either late in 1804 or early in 1805, according to 
my present computations, that I had obtained from a literary 

25 friend a letter of introduction to Mr. Lamb. All that I 
knew of his works was his play of " John Woodvil," which 

Hence, also, arises the reason that genius is always peculiar and indi- 
vidual ; one man's genius never exactly repeats another man's. But 
talent is the same in all men ; and that which is effected by talent can 
never serve to identify or indicate its author. Hence, too, that, although 
talent is the object of respect, it never conciliates love ; you love a man 
of talent perhaps in concrete, but not talent ; whereas genius, even for 
itself, is idolized. I am the more proud of this distinction since I have 
seen the utter failure of Mr. Coleridge, judging from his attempt in his 
" Table-Talk." 



A MEETING WITH LAMB 



95 



I had bought in Oxford, and perhaps / only had bought 
throughout that great University, at the time of my matric- 
ulation there, about the Christmas of 1803. Another 
book fell into my hands on that same morning, I recollect 

— the " Gebir " of Mr. Walter Savage Landor, which aston- 5 
ished me by the splendour of its descriptions (for I had 
opened accidentally upon the sea-nymph's marriage with 
Tamor, the youthful brother of Gebir) — and I bought 
this also. Afterwards, when placing these two most unpop- 
ular of books on the same shelf with the other far holier 10 
idols of my heart, the joint poems of Wordsworth and 
Coleridge as then associated in the " Lyrical Ballads " 

— poems not equally unknown, perhaps a little better 
known, but only with the result of being more openly 
scorned, rejected — I could not but smile internally at 15 
the fair prospect I had of congregating a library which 
no man had read but myself. " John Woodvil " I had 
almost studied, and Miss Lamb's pretty "High-Born 
Helen," and the ingenious imitations of Burton ; these I 
had read, and, to a certain degree, must have admired, for 20 
some parts of them had settled without effort in my 
memory. I had read also the Editibtcrgh notice of them ; 
and with what contempt may be supposed from the fact 
that my veneration for Wordsworth transcended all that I 
felt for any created being, past or present ; insomuch that, 25 
in the summer, or spring rather, of that same year, and full 
eight months before I first went to Oxford, I had ventured 

to address a letter to him, through his publishers, the 
Messrs. Longman (which letter, Miss Wordsworth in after 
years assured me they believed to be the production of 30 
some person much older than I represented myself), and 
that in due time I had been honoured by a long answer 
from Wordsworth ; an honour which, I well remember, kept 
me awake, from mere excess of pleasure, through a long 



96 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

night in June 1803. It was not to be supposed that the 
very feeblest of admirations could be shaken by mere 
scorn and contumely, unsupported by any shadow of a 
reason. Wordsworth, therefore, could not have suffered 
5 in any man's opinion from the puny efforts of this new 
autocrat amongst reviewers ; but what was said of Lamb, 
though not containing one iota of criticism, either good or 
bad, had certainly more point and cleverness. The sup- 
position that "John Woodvil " might be a lost drama, 

10 recovered from the age of Thespis, and entitled to the 
hircus, &c., must, I should think, have won a smile from 
Lamb himself; or why say ''Lamb himself," which means 
^^even Lamb," when he would have been the very first to 
laugh (as he was afterwards among the first to hoot at his 

15 own farce), provided only he could detach his mind from 
the ill-nature and hard contempt which accompanied the 
wit. This wit had certainly not dazzled my eyes in the 
slightest degree. So far as I was left at leisure by a more 
potent order of poetry to think of the "John Woodvil " at 

20 all, I had felt and acknowledged a delicacy and tenderness 
in the situations as well as the sentiments, but disfigured, 
as I thought, by quaint, grotesque, and mimetic phrase- 
ology. The main defect, however, of which I complained, 
was defect of power. I thought Lamb had no right to 

25 take his station amongst the inspired writers who had just 
then risen to throw new blood into our literature, and to 
breathe a breath of life through the worn-out, or, at least, 
torpid organization of the national mind. He belonged, I 
thought, to the old literature ; and, as a poet, he certainly 

30 does. There were in his verses minute scintillations of 
genius — now and then, even a subtle sense of beauty ; and 
there were shy graces, lurking half-unseen, like violets in 
the shade. But there was no power on a colossal scale ; 
no breadth ; no choice of great subjects ; no wrestling 



A MEETING WITH LAMB 97 

with difficulty ; no creative energy. So I thought then ; 
and so I should think now, if Lamb were viewed chiefly as 
a poet. Since those days he has established his right to a 
seat in any company. But why? and in what character ? 
As " Elia " : — the essays of " Elia " are as exquisite a gem 5 
amongst the jewellery of literature as any nation can show. 
They do not, indeed, suggest to the typifying imagination 
a Last Supper of Da Vinci or a Group from the Sistine 
Chapel ; but they suggest some exquisite cabinet painting ; 
such, for instance, as that Carlo Dolce known to all who 10 
have visited Lord Exeter's place of Burleigh (by the way, 
I bar the allusion to Charles Lamb which a shameless 
punster suggests in the name Carlo Dolce) ; and in this 
also resembling that famous picture — that many critics 
(Hazlitt amongst others) can see little or nothing in it. 15 
Quani nihil ad genium, Fapiiiiaiie^ tuiini ! Those, therefore, 
err, in my opinion who present Lamb to our notice 
amongst the poets. Very pretty, very elegant, very tender, 
very beautiful verses he has written ; nay, twice he has 
written verses of extraordinary force, almost demoniac 20 
force — viz., "The Three Graves," and "The Gipsy's 
Malison." But, speaking generally, he writes verses as 
one to whom that function was a secondary and occa- 
sional function, not his original and natural vocation, — 
not an kpyov, but a irapepyov. 25 

For the reasons, therefore, I have given, never thinking 
of Charles Lamb as a poet, and, at that time, having no 
means for judging of him in any other character, I had 
requested the letter of introduction to him rather with a 
view to some further knowledge of Coleridge (who was then 30 
absent from England) than from any special interest about 
Lamb himself. However, I felt the extreme discourtesy of 
approaching a man and asking for his time and civility 
under such an avowal : and the letter, therefore, as I 



98 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCEY 

believe, or as I requested, represented me in the light of an 
admirer. I hope it did ; for that character might have 
some excuse for what followed, and heal the unpleasant 
impression likely to be left by a sort of fracas which 
5 occurred at my first meeting with Lamb. This was so 
characteristic of Lamb that I have often laughed at it 
since I came to know what was characteristic of Lamb. 

But first let me describe my brief introductory call upon 
him at the India House. I had been told that he was 

10 never to be found at home except in the evenings ; and to 
have called then would have been, in a manner, forcing 
myself upon his hospitalities, and at a moment when 
he might have confidential friends about him ; besides 
that, he was sometimes tempted away to the theatres. I 

15 went, therefore, to the India House ; made inquiries 
amongst the servants; and, after some trouble (for that 
was early in his Leadenhall Street career, and possibly he 
was not much known), I was shown into a small room, or 
else a small section of a large one (thirty-four years affects 

20 one's remembrance of some circumstances), in which was a 
very lofty writing-desk, separated by a still higher railing 
from that part of the floor on which the profane — the 
laity, like myself — were allowed to approach the derus, or 
clerkly rulers of the room. Within the railing sat, to the 

25 best of my remembrance, six quill-driving gentlemen; not 
gentlemen whose duty or profession it was merely to 
drive the quill, but who were then driving it — gens de 
plume, such /;/ esse, as well as in posse — in act as well as 
habit ; for, as if they supposed me a spy sent by some 

30 superior power to report upon the situation of affairs as 
surprised by me, they were all too profoundly immersed 
in their oriental studies to have any sense of my presence. 
Consequently, I was reduced to a necessity of announcing 
myself and my errand. I walked, therefore, into one of the 



A MEETING WITH LAMB 



99 



two open doorways of the railing, and stood closely by 
the high stool of him who occupied the first place within 
the little aisle. I touched his arm, by way of recalling 
him from his lofty Leadenhall speculation to this sub- 
lunary world ; and, presenting my letter, asked if that gen- 5 
tleman (pointing to the address) were really a citizen of 
the present room ; for I had been repeatedly misled, by 
the directions given me, into wrong rooms. The gentle- 
man smiled ; it was a smile not to be forgotten. This was 
Lamb. And here occurred a ver}\ very little incident — 10 
one of those which pass so fugitively that they are gone 
and hurrying away into Lethe almost before your attention 
can have arrested them; but it was an incident which, 
to me, who happened to notice it, served to express the 
courtesy and delicate consideration of Lamb's manners. 15 
The seat upon which he sat was a very high one ; so 
absurdly high, by the way, that I can imagine no possible 
use or sense in such an altitude, unless it were to restrain 
the occupant from playing truant at the fire by opposing 
Alpine difficulties to his descent. 20 

Whatever might be the original purpose of this aspiring 
seat, one serious dilemma arose from it, and this it was 
which gave the occasion to Lamb's act of courtesy. Some- 
where there is an anecdote, meant to' illustrate the ultra- 
obsequiousness of the man, — either I have heard of it in 25 
connexion with some actual man known to myself, or it is 
told in a book of some historical coxcomb, — that, being 
on horseback, and meeting some person or other whom it 
seemed advisable to flatter, he actually dismounted, in 
ordof to pay his court by a more ceremonious bow. In 30 
Russia, as we all know, this was, at one time, upon meet- 
ing any of the Imperial family, an act of legal necessity : 
and there, accordingly, but there only, it would have worn 
no ludi9rous aspect. Now, in this situation of Lamb's, 

1 L.O! ^ 



lOO SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

the act of descending from his throne, a very elaborate 
process, with steps and stages analogous to those on 
horseback — of slipping your right foot out of the stirrup, 
throwing your leg over the crupper, &:c. — was, to all 

5 intents and purposes, the same thing as dismounting from 
a great elephant of a horse. Therefore it both was, and 
was felt to be by Lamb, supremely ludicrous. On the 
other hand, to have sate still and stately upon this aerial 
station, to have bowed condescendingly from this altitude, 

10 would have been — not ludicrous indeed ; performed by a 
very superb person and supported by a superb bow, it 
might have been vastly fine, and even terrifying to many 
young gentlemen under sixteen ; but it would have had an 
air of ungentlemanly assumption. Between these extremes, 

15 therefore. Lamb had to choose; — between appearing ridic- 
ulous himself for a moment, by going through a ridiculous 
evolution which no man could execute with grace ; or, on 
the other hand, appearing lofty and assuming, in a degree 
which his truly humble nature (for he was the humblest of 

20 men in the pretensions which he put forward for himself) 
must have shrunk from with horror. Nobody who knew 
Lamb can doubt how the problem was solved : he began 
to dismount instantly ; and, as it happened that the very 
first 7'oimd of his descent obliged him to turn his back 

25 upon me as if for a sudden purpose of flight, he had an 
excuse for laughing; which he did heartily — saying, at the 
same time, something to this effect : that I must not judge 
from first appearances ; that he should revolve upon me ; 
that he was not going to fly ; and other facetiae, which 

30 challenged a general laugh from the clerical brotherhood. 

When he had reached the basis of terra firma on which 

I was standing, naturally, as a mode of thanking him for 

his courtesy, I presented my hand ; which, in a general case, 

I should certainly not have done ; for I cherished, in an 



A MEETING WITH LAMB loi 

ultra-English degree, the English custom (a wise custom) 
of bowing in frigid silence on a first introduction to a 
stranger; but, to a man of literary talent, and one who had 
just practised so much kindness in my favour at so prob- 
able a hazard to himself of being laughed at for his pains, 5 
I could not maintain that frosty reserve. Lamb took my 
hand ; did not absolutely reject it : but rather repelled my 
advance by his manner. This, however, long afterwards I 
found, was only a habit derived from his too great sen- 
sitiveness to the variety of people's feelings, which run 10 
through a gamut so infinite of degrees and modes as to 
make it unsafe for any man who respects himself to be 
too hasty in his allowances of familiarity. Lamb had, 
as he was entitled to have, a high self-respect ; and me he 
probably suspected (as a young Oxonian) of some aris- 15 
tocratic tendencies. The letter of introduction, contain- 
ing (I imagine) no matters of business, was speedily run 
through ; and I instantly received an invitation to spend 
the evening with him. Lamb was not one of those who 
catch at the chance of escaping from a bore by fixing some 20 
distant day, when accidents (in duplicate proportion, per- 
haps, to the number of intervening days) may have carried 
you away from the place : he sought to benefit by no luck 
of that kind ; for he was, with his limited income — and I 
say it deliberately — positively the most hospitable man 25 
I have known in this world. That night, the .same night, 
I was to come and spend the evening with him. I had 
gone to the India House with the express purpose of 
accepting whatever invitation he should give me ; and, 
therefore, I accepted this, took my leave, and left Lamb 30 
in the act of resuming his aerial position. 

I was to come so early as to drink tea with Lamb ; and 
the hour was seven. He lived in the Temple ; and I, who 
was not then, as afterwards I became, a student and 



102 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCEY 

member of " the Honourable Society of the Middle 
Temple," did not know much of the localities. How- 
ever, I found out his abode, not greatly beyond my time : 
nobody had been asked to meet me, — which a little sur- 
5 prised me, but I was glad of it ; for, besides Lamb, there 
was present his sister. Miss Lamb, of whom, and whose 
talents and sweetness of disposition, I had heard. I 
turned the conversation, upon the first opening which 
offered, to the subject of Coleridge ; and many of my ques- 

10 tions were answered satisfactorily, because seriously, by 
Miss Lamb. But Lamb took a pleasure in baffling me, or 
in throwing ridicule upon the subject. Out of this grew 
the matter of our affray. We were speaking of "The 
Ancient Mariner." Now, to explain what followed, and a 

15 little to excuse myself, I must beg the reader to understand 
that I was under twenty years of age, and that my admira- 
tion for Coleridge (as, in perhaps a still greater degree, for 
Wordsworth) was literally in no respect short of a religious 
feeling: it had, indeed, all the sanctity of religion, and 

20 all the tenderness of a human veneration. Then, also, to 
imagine the strength which it would derive from circum- 
stances that do not exist now, but did then, let the reader 
further suppose a case — not such as he may have known 
since that era about Sir Walter Scotts and Lord Byrons, 

25 where every man you could possibly fall foul of, early or 
late, night or day, summer or winter, was in perfect readi- 
ness to feel and express his sympathy with the admirer 
— but when no man, beyond one or two in each ten thou- 
sand, had so much as heard of either Coleridge or Words- 

30 worth, and that one, or those two, knew them only to scorn 
them, trample on them, spit upon them. Men so abject in 
public estimation, I maintain, as that Coleridge and that 
Wordsworth, had not existed before, have not existed 
since, will not exist again. We have heard in old times of 



A MEETING WITH LAMB 103 

donkeys insulting effete or dying lions by kicking them ; 
but in the case of Coleridge and Wordsworth it was effete 
donkeys that kicked living lions. They, Coleridge and 
Wordsworth, were the Pariahs of literature in those days : 
as much scorned wherever they were known ; but escaping 5 
that scorn only because they were as little known as 
Pariahs, and even more obscure. 

Well, after this bravura, by way of conveying my sense 
of the real position then occupied by these two authors — 
a position which thirty and odd years have altered, by a 10 
revolution more astonishing and total than ever before 
happened in literature or in life— let the reader figure to 
himself the sensitive horror with which a young person, 
carrying his devotion about with him, of necessity, as the 
profoundest of secrets, like a primitive Christian amongst 15 
a nation of Pagans, or a Roman Catholic convert amongst 
the bloody idolaters of Japan — in Oxford, above all 
places, hoping for no sympathy, and feeling a daily grief, 
almost a shame, in harbouring this devotion to that 
which, nevertheless, had done more for the expansion 20 
and sustenance of his own inner mind than all literature 
besides — let the reader figure, I say, to himself, the shock 
with which such a person must recoil from hearing the 
very friend and associate of these authors utter what 
seemed at that time a burning ridicule of all which be- 25 
longed to them — their books, their thoughts, their places, 
their persons. This had gone on for some time before we 
came upon the ground of " The Ancient Mariner " ; I had 
been grieved, perplexed, astonished ; and how else could I 
have felt reasonably, knowing nothing of Lamb's propensity 30 
to mystify a stranger ; he, on the other hand, knowing 
nothing of the depth of my feelings on these subjects, 
and that they were not so much mere literary preferences 
as something that went deeper than life or household 



I04 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

affections ? At length, when he had given utterance to some 
ferocious canon of judgment, which seemed to question 
the entire value of the poem, I said, perspiring (I dare 
say) in this detestable crisis — "But, Mr. Lamb, good 
5 heavens ! how is it possible you can allow yourself in such 
opinions ? What instance could you bring from the poem 
that would bear you out in these insinuations ? " " In- 
stances ? " said Lamb : "oh, I'll instance you, if you come 
to that. Instance, indeed ! Pray, what do you say to 

10 this — _, , .. , 

' The many men so beautiful, 

And they all dead did lie ' ? 

So beautiful^ indeed ! Beautiful ! Just think of such a gang 
of Wapping vagabonds, all covered with pitch, and chewing 

15 tobacco; and the old gentleman himself — what do you 
call him? — the bright-eyed fellow?" What more might 
follow I never heard ; for, at this point, in a perfect rap- 
ture of horror, I raised my hands — both hands — to both 
ears ; and, without stopping to think or to apologize, I 

20 endeavoured to restore equanimity to my disturbed sensi- 
bilities by shutting out all further knowledge of Lamb's 
impieties. At length he seemed to have finished ; so I, on 
my part, thought I might venture to take off the embargo : 
and in fact he had ceased ; but no sooner did he find me 

25 restored to my hearing than he said with a most sarcastic 
smile — which he could assume upon occasion — " If you 
please, sir, we'll say grace before we begin." I know not 
whether Lamb were really piqued or not at the mode by 
which I had expressed my disturbance : Miss Lamb cer- 

30 tainly was not ; her goodness led her to pardon me, and to 
treat me — in whatever light she might really view my 
almost involuntary rudeness — as the party who had suf- 
fered wrong ; and, for the rest of the evening, she was so 
pointedly kind and conciliatory in her manner that I felt 



A MEETING WITH LAMB 105 

greatly ashamed of my boyish failure in self-command. 
Yet, after all, Lamb necessarily appeared so much worse, 
in my eyes, as a traitor is worse than an open enemy. 

Lamb, after this one visit — not knowing at that time 
any particular reason for continuing to seek his acquaint- 5 
ance — I did not trouble with my calls for some years. At 
length, however, about the year 1808, and for the six or 
seven following years, in my evening visits to Coleridge, I 
used to meet him again ; not often, but sufficiently to 
correct the altogether very false impression I had received 10 
of his character and manners. 



A MEETING WITH COLERIDGE 

It was, I think, in the month of August, but certainly 
in the summer season, and certainly in the year 1807, that 
I first saw this illustrious man. My knowledge of him as 
a man of most original genius began about the year 1799. 

5 A little before that time Wordsworth had published the 
first edition (in a single volume) of the " Lyrical Ballads," 
and into this had been introduced Mr. Coleridge's poem 
of the "Ancient Mariner," as the contribution of an anony- 
mous friend. It would be directing the reader's attention 

10 too much to myself if I were to linger upon this, the great- 
est event in the unfolding of my own mind. Let me say, 
in one word, that, at a period when neither the one nor 
the other writer was valued by the public — both having 
a long warfare to accomplish of contumely and ridicule 

15 before they could rise into their present estimation — I 
found in these poems "the ray of a new morning," and 
an absolute revelation of untrodden worlds teeming with 
power and beauty as yet unsuspected amongst men. I 
may here mention that, precisely at the same time, Pro- 

20 fessor Wilson, entirely unconnected with myself, and not 
even known to me until ten years later, received the same 
startling and profound impressions from the same volume. 
With feelings of reverential interest, so early and so deep, 
pointing towards two contemporaries, it may be supposed 

25 that I inquired eagerly after their names. But these 
inquiries were self-baffled ; the same deep feelings which 
prompted my curiosity causing me to recoil from all 

106 



A MEETING WITH COLERIDGE 107 

casual opportunities of pushing the inquiry, as too gen- 
erally lying amongst those who gave no sign of partici- 
pating in my feelings ; and, extravagant as this may seem, 
I revolted with as much hatred from coupling my ques- 
tion with any occasion of insult to the persons whom it 5 
respected as a primitive Christian from throwing frankin- 
cense upon the altars of Cssar, or a lover from giving 
up the name of his beloved to the coarse license of a Bac- 
chanalian party. It is laughable to record for how long 
a period my curiosity in this particular was thus self- 10 
defeated. Two years passed before I ascertained the two 
names. Mr. Wordsworth published his in the second and 
enlarged edition of the poems ; and for Mr. Coleridge's 
I was " indebted " to a private source ; but I discharged 
that debt ill, for I quarrelled with my informant for what 15 
I considered his profane way of dealing with a subject 
so hallowed in my own thoughts. After this I searched, 
east and west, north and south, for all known works or 
fragments of the same authors. I had read, therefore, 
as respects Mr. Coleridge, the Allegory which he con- 20 
tributed to Mr. Southey's "Joan of Arc." I had read 
his fine Ode entitled "France," his Ode to the Duchess 
of Devonshire, and various other contributions, more or 
less interesting, to the two volumes of the "Anthology" 
published at Bristol, about 1 799-1800, by Mr. Southey ; 25 
and, finally, I had, of course, read the small volume of 
poems published under his own name. These, however, 
as a juvenile and immature collection, made expressly 
with a view to pecuniary profit, and therefore courting 
expansion at any cost of critical discretion, had in gen- 30 
eral greatly disappointed me. 

Meantime, it had crowned the interest which to me 
invested his name, that about the year 1804 or 1805 I 
had been informed by a gentleman from the English 



lo8 SELECTIONS FROM BE QUINCE Y 

Lakes, who knew him as a neighbour, that he had for 
some time applied his whole mind to metaphysics and 
psychology — which happened to be my own absorbing 
pursuit. From 1803 to 1808, I was a student at Oxford; 
5 and, on the first occasion when I could conveniently have 
sought for a personal knowledge of one whom I contem- 
plated with so much admiration, I was met by a painful 
assurance that he had quitted England, and was then 
residing at Malta, in the quality of secretary to the Gov- 

10 ernor. I began to inquire about the best route to Malta ; 
but, as any route at that time promised an inside place 
in a French prison, I reconciled myself to waiting ; and 
at last, happening to visit the Bristol Hot-Wells in the 
summer of 1807, I had the pleasure to hear that Cole- 

15 ridge was not only once more upon English ground, but 
within forty and odd miles of my own station. In that 
same hour I bent my way to the south ; and, before even- 
ing, reaching a ferry on the river Bridgewater, at a village 
called, I think, Stogursey {i.e., Stoke de Courcy, by way 

20 of distinction from some other Stoke), I crossed it, and a 
few miles farther attained my object — viz., the little town 
of Nether Stowey, amongst the Quantock Hills. Here I 
had been assured that I should find Mr. Coleridge, at the 
house of his old friend Mr. Poole. On presenting myself, 

25 however, to that gentleman, I found that Coleridge was 
absent at Lord Egmont's, an elder brother (by the father's 
side) of Mr. Perceval, the Prime Minister, assassinated 
five years later ; and, as it was doubtful whether he might 
not then be on the wing to another friend's in the town 

30 of Bridgewater, I consented willingly, until his motions 
should be ascertained, to stay a day or two with this Mr. 
Poole — a man on his own account well deserving a sepa- 
rate notice ; for, as Coleridge afterwards remarked to me, 
he was almost an ideal model for a useful member of 



A MEETING WITH COLERIDGE 109 

Parliament. I found him a stout, plain-looking farmer, 
leading a bachelor life, in a rustic, old-fashioned house ; the 
house, however, upon further acquaintance, proving to 
be amply furnished with modern luxuries, and especially 
with a good library, superbly mounted in all departments 5 
bearing at all upon political philosophy ; and the farmer 
turning out a polished and liberal Englishman, who had 
travelled extensively, and had so entirely dedicated him- 
self to the service of his humble fellow-countrymen — the 
hewers of wood and drawers of water in this southern part 10 
of Somersetshire — that for many miles round he was the 
general arbiter of their disputes, the guide and counsellor 
of their difficulties ; besides being appointed executor and 
guardian to his children by every third man who died in 
or about the town of Nether Stowey. 15 

The first morning of my visit, Mr. Poole was so kind 
as to propose, knowing my admiration of Wordsworth, 
that we should ride over to Alfoxton — a place of singular 
interest to myself, as having been occupied in his unmar- 
ried days by that poet, during the minority of Mr. St. 20 
Aubyn, its present youthful proprietor. At this delightful 
spot, the ancient residence of an ancient English family, 
and surrounded by those ferny Quantock Hills which are so 
beautifully glanced at in the poem of " Ruth," Wordsworth, 
accompanied by his sister, had passed a good deal of the 25 
interval between leaving the University (Cambridge) and 
the period of his final settlement amongst his native lakes 
of Westmoreland : some allowance, however, must be made 
— but how much I do not accurately know — for a long 
residence in France, for a short one in North Germany, for 30 
an intermitting one in London, and for a regular domesti- 
cation with his sister at Race Down in Dorsetshire. 

Returning late from this interesting survey, we found our- 
selves without company at dinner ; and, being thus seated 



no SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

tete-a-tete^ Mr. Poole propounded the following question to 
me, which I mention because it furnished me with the first 
hint of a singular infirmity besetting Coleridge's mind : — 
" Pray, my young friend, did you ever form any opinion, 

5 or, rather, did it ever happen to you to meet with any 
rational opinion or conjecture of others, upon that most 
revolting dogma of Pythagoras about beans? You know 
what I mean : that monstrous doctrine in which he asserts 
that a man might as well, for the wickedness of the thing, 

10 eat his own grandmother as meddle with beans." 

"Yes," I replied; "the line is, I believe, in the Golden 
Verses. I remember it well." 

P. — "True: now, our dear excellent friend Coleridge, 
than whom God never made a creature more divinely 

15 endowed, yet, strange it is to say, sometimes steals from 
other people, just as you or I might do ; I beg your par- 
don — just as a poor creature like myself might do, that 
sometimes have not wherewithal to make a figure from 
my own exchequer : and the other day, at a dinner party, 

20 this question arising about Pythagoras and his beans, 
Coleridge gave us an interpretation which, from his man- 
ner, I suspect to have been not original. Think, there- 
fore, if you have anywhere read a plausible solution." 
" I have : and it was a German author. This German, 

25 understand, is a poor stick of a man, not to be named on 
the same day with Coleridge : so that, if Coleridge should 
appear to have robbed him, be assured that he has done 
the scamp too much honour." 

P. — " Well : what says the German ? " 

30 " Why, you know the use made in Greece of beans in 
voting and balloting ? Well : the German says that Pythag- 
oras speaks symbolically; meaning that electioneering, or, 
more generally, all interference with political intrigues, is 
fatal to a philosopher's pursuits and their appropriate 



A MEETING WITH COLERIDGE ili 

serenity. Therefore, says he, follower of mine, abstain 
from public affairs as you would from parricide." 

P. — " Well, then, Coleridge has done the scamp too 
much honour : for, by Jove, that is the very explanation he 
gave us ! " 5 

Here was a trait of Coleridge's mind, to be first made 
known to me by his best friend, and first published to 
the world by me, the foremost of his admirers ! But both 
of us had sufficient reasons : — Mr. Poole knew that, stum- 
bled on by accident, such a discovery would be likely to lo 
impress upon a man as yet unacquainted with Coleridge a 
most injurious jealousy with regard to all he might write : 
whereas, frankly avowed by one who knew him best, the 
fact was disarmed of its sting ; since it thus became evi- 
dent that, where the case had been best known and most 15 
investigated, it had not operated to his serious disad- 
vantage. On the same argument, — to forestall, that is to 
say, other discoverers, who would make a more unfriendly 
use of the discovery, — and also as matters of literary curi- 
osity, I shall here point out a few others of Coleridge's 20 
unacknowledged obligations, noticed by myself in a very 
wide course of reading. 

I. The Hymn to Chamouni is an expansion of a short 
poem in stanzas, upon the same subject, by Frederica Brun, 
a female poet of Germany, previously known to the world 25 
under her maiden name of Miinter. The mere framework 
of the poem is exactly the same — an appeal to the most 
impressive features of the regal mountain (Mont Blanc), 
adjuring them to proclaim their author: the torrent, for 
instance, is required to say by whom it had been arrested 30 
in its headlong raving, and stiffened, as by the petrific 
touch of Death, into everlasting pillars of ice; and the 
answer to these impassioned apostrophes is made by the 
same choral burst of rapture. In mere logic, therefore. 



112 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

and even as to the choice of circumstances, Coleridge's 
poem is a translation. On the other hand, by a judicious 
amplification of some topics, and by its far deeper tone of 
lyrical enthusiasm, the dry bones of the German outline 
5 have been awakened by Coleridge into the fulness of life. 
It is not, therefore, a paraphrase, but a re-cast of the 
original. And how was this calculated, if frankly avowed, 
to do Coleridge any injury with the judicious ? 

2. A more singular case of Coleridge's infirmity is this : 

10 — In a very noble passage of "France," a fine expression 
or two occur from "Samson Agonistes." Now, to take a 
phrase or an inspiriting line from the great fathers of poetry, 
even though no marks of quotations should be added, carries 
with it no charge of plagiarism. Milton is justly presumed 

15 to be as familiar to the ear as nature to the eye; and to 
steal from him as impossible as to appropriate, or sequester 
to a private use, some "bright particular star." And there 
is a good reason for rejecting the typographical marks of 
quotation: they break the continuity of the passion, by 

20 reminding the reader of a printed book ; on which account 
Milton himself (to give an instance) has not marked the 
sublime words, " tormented all the air " as borrowed ; nor 
has Wordsworth, in applying to an unprincipled woman of 
commanding beauty the memorable expression " a weed 

25 of glorious feature," thought it necessary to acknowledge 
it as originally belonging to Spenser. Some dozens of 
similar cases might be adduced from Milton. But Cole- 
ridge, when saying of republican France that, 

" Insupportably advancing, 
30 Her arm made mockery of the warrior's tramp," 

not satisfied with omitting the marks of acknowledgment, 
thought fit positively to deny that he was indebted to 
Milton. Yet who could forget that semi-chorus in the 



A MEETING WITH COLERIDGE 113 

" Samson " where the " bold Ascalonite " is described as hav- 
ing " fled from his lion ramp " ? Or who, that was not in this 
point liable to some hallucination of judgment, would have 
ventured on a public challenge (for virtually it was that) to 
produce from the " Samson " words so impossible to be 5 
overlooked as those of " insupportably advancing the 
foot " ? The result was that one of the critical journals 
placed the two passages in juxtaposition and left the reader 
to his own conclusions with regard to the poet's veracity. 
But, in this instance, it was common sense rather than 10 
veracity which the facts impeach. 

3. In the year 18 10 I happened to be amusing myself 
by reading, in their chronological order, the great classical 
circumnavigations of the earth; and, coming to Shelvocke, 
I met with a passage to this effect: — That Hatley, his 15 
second captain {i.e., lieutenant), being a melancholy man, 
was possessed by a fancy that some long season of foul 
weather, in the solitary sea which they were then travers- 
ing, was due to an albatross which had steadily pursued 
the ship ; upon which he shot the bird, but without mend- 20 
ing their condition. There at once I saw the germ of the 
" Ancient Mariner " ; and I put a question to Coleridge 
accordingly. Could it have been imagined that he would 
see cause utterly to disown so slight an obligation to Shel- 
vocke? Wordsworth, a man of stern veracity, on hearing 25 
of this, professed his inability to understand Coleridge's 
meaning; the fact being notorious, as he told me, that 
Coleridge had derived from the very passage I had cited 
the original hint for the action of the poem ; though it is 
very possible, from something which Coleridge said on 30 
another occasion, that, before meeting a fable in which to 
embody his ideas, he had meditated a poem on delirium, 
confounding its own dream-scenery with external things, 
and connected with the imagery of high latitudes. 



114 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

4. All these cases amount to nothing at all as cases of 
plagiarism, and for this reason expose the more con- 
spicuously that obliquity of feeling which could seek to 
decline the very slight acknowledgments required. But 
5 now I come to a case of real and palpable plagiarism ; yet 
that, too, of a nature to be quite accountable in a man of 
Coleridge's attainments. It is not very likely that this 
particular case will soon be detected ; but others will. Yet 
who knows ? Eight hundred or a thousand years hence, 

10 some reviewer may arise who, having read the "Biogra- 
phia Literaria " of Coleridge, will afterwards read the 
" Philosophical " ^ of Schelling, the great Bavarian pro- 
fessor — a man in some respects worthy to be Coleridge's 
assessor ; and he will then make a singular discovery. In 

15 the " Biographia Literaria" occurs a dissertation upon the 
reciprocal relations of the Esse and the Cogitare, — that is, 
of the objective and the subjective : and an attempt is made, 
by inverting the postulates from which the argument 
starts, to show how each might arise as a product, by an 

20 intelligible genesis, from the other. It is a subject which, 
since the time of Fichte, has much occupied the German 
metaphysicians ; and many thousands of essays have been 
written on it, or indirectly so, of which many hundreds 
have been read by many tens of persons. Coleridge's 

25 essay, in particular, is prefaced by a few words in which, 
aware of his coincidence with Schelling, he declares his 
willingness to acknowledge himself indebted to so great a 
man in any case where the truth would allow him to do 
so; but, in this particular case, insisting on the impossi- 

30 bility that he could have borrowed arguments which he 
had first seen some years after he had thought out the 

1 I forget the exact title, not having seen the book since 1823, and 
then only for one day ; but I believe it was Schelling's " Kleine Philo- 
sophische Werke." 



A MEETING WITH COLERIDGE 115 

whole hypothesis propria martc. After this, what was my 
astonishment to find that the entire essay, from the first 
word to the last, is a verbatifn translation from Schelling, 
with no attempt in a single instance to appropriate the 
paper by developing the arguments or by diversifying the 5 
illustrations ? Some other obligations to Schelling, of a 
slighter kind, I have met with in the " Biographia Lite- 
raria"; but this was a barefaced plagiarism, which could in 
prudence have been risked only by relying too much upon 
the slight knowledge of German literature in this country, 10 
and especially of that section of the German literature. 
Had, then, Coleridge any need to borrow from Schelling ? 
Did he borrow in forjua pauperis ? Not at all: there lay 
the wonder. He spun daily, and at all hours, for mere 
amusement of his own activities, and from the loom of his 15 
own magical brain, theories more gorgeous by far, and 
supported by a pomp and luxury of images such as neither 
Schelling — no, nor any German that ever breathed, not 
John Paul — could have emulated in his dreams. With the 
riches of El Dorado lying about him, he would condescend 20 
to filch a handful of gold from any man whose purse he 
fancied, and in fact reproduced in a new form, applying 
itself to intellectual wealth, that maniacal propensity which 
is sometimes well known to attack enormous proprietors 
and millionaires for acts of petty larceny. The last Duke 25 
of Anc[aster] could not abstain from exercising his furtive 
mania upon articles so humble as silver spoons; and it was 
the nightly care of a pious daughter, watching over the 
aberrations of her father, to have his pockets searched by 
a confidential valet; and the claimants of the purloined 3° 
articles traced out. 

Many cases have crossed me in life of people, otherwise 
not wanting in principle, who had habits, or at least 
hankerings, of the same kind. And the phrenologists, I 



ii6 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

believe, are well acquainted with the case, its signs, its prog- 
ress, and its history. Dismissing, however, this subject, 
which I have at all noticed only that I might anticipate, 
and (in old English) that I might p7'event, the uncandid 

5 interpreter of its meaning, I will assert finally that, after 
having read for thirty years in the same track as Coleridge 
— that track in which few of any age will ever follow us, 
such as German metaphysicians, Latin schoolmen, thau- 
maturgic Platonists, religious Mystics — and having thus 

lo discovered a large variety of trivial thefts, I do, neverthe- 
less, most heartily believe him to have been as entirely 
original in all his capital pretensions as any one man that 
ever has existed ; as Archimedes in ancient days, or as 
Shakspere in modern. Did the reader eyer see Milton's 

15 account of the rubbish contained in the Greek and Latin 
Fathers ? Or did he ever read a statement of the mon- 
strous chaos with which an African Obeah man stuffs his 
enchanted scarecrows ? Or, take a more common illustra- 
tion, did he ever amuse himself by searching the pockets 

20 of a child — three years old, suppose — when buried in 
slumber after a long summer's day of out-o'-doors intense 
activity.-* I have done this; and, for the amusement of the 
child's mother, have analyzed the contents, and drawn up 
a formal register of the whole. Philosophy is puzzled, 

25 conjecture and hypothesis are confounded, in the attempt 
to explain the law of selection which ca?i have presided in 
the child's labours ; stones remarkable only for weight, old 
rusty hinges, nails, crooked skewers stolen when the cook 
had turned her back, rags, broken glass, tea-cups having 

30 the bottom knocked out, and loads of similar jewels, were 
the prevailing articles in this proces-verbal. Yet, doubtless, 
much labour had been incurred, some sense of danger 
perhaps had been faced, and the anxieties of a conscious 
robber endured, in order to amass this splendid treasure. 



A MEETING WITH COLERIDGE 117 

Such in value were the robberies of Coleridge ; such their 
usefulness to himself or anybody else ; and such the cir- 
cumstances of uneasiness under which he fiad committed 
them. I return to my narrative. 

Two or three days had slipped away in waiting for Cole- 5 
ridge's re-appearance at Nether Stowey, when suddenly 
Lord Egmont called upon Mr. Poole, with a present for 
Coleridge : it was a canister of peculiarly fine snuff, which 
Coleridge now took profusely. Lord Egmont, on this 
occasion, spoke of Coleridge in the terms of excessive 10 
admiration, and urged Mr. Poole to put him upon under- 
taking some great monumental work, that might furnish a 
sufficient arena for the display of his various and rare 
accomplishments ; for his multiform erudition on the one 
hand, for his splendid power of theorizing and combining 15 
large and remote notices of facts on the other. And he 
suggested, judiciously enough, as one theme which offered 
a field at once large enough and indefinite enough to suit a 
mind that could not show its full compass of power unless 
upon very plastic materials — a History of Christianity, 20 
in its progress and in its chief divarications into Church 
and Sect, with a continual reference to the relations sub- 
sisting between Christianity and the current philosophy ; 
their occasional connexions or approaches, and their con- 
stant mutual repulsions. " But, at any rate, let him do 25 
something," said Lord Egmont ; " for at present he talks 
very much like an angel, and does nothing at all." Lord 
Egmont I understood from everybody to be a truly good 
and benevolent man ; and on this occasion he spoke with \ 
an earnestness which agreed with my previous impression. 30I 
Coleridge, he said, was now in the prime of his powers — j 
uniting something of youthful vigour with sufficient experi- 
ence of life ; having the benefit, beside, of vast meditation, 
and of reading unusually discursive. No man had ever 



SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 



^ 



been better qualified to revive the heroic period of litera- 
ture in England, and to give a character of weight to the 
philosophic erudition of the country upon the Continent. 
"And what a pity," he added, "if this man were, after all, 
5 to vanish like an apparition, and you, I, and a few others, 
who have witnessed his grand bravuras of display, were to 
have the usual fortune of ghost-seers, in meeting no credit 
for any statements that we might vouch on his behalf!" 
On this occasion we learned, for the first time, that 

lo Lord Egmont's carriage had, some days before, conveyed 
Coleridge to Bridgewater, with a purpose of staying one 
single day at that place, and then returning to Mr. Poole's. 
From the sort of laugh with which Lord Egmont taxed 
his own simplicity, in having confided at all in the sta- 

15 bility of any Coleridgian plan, I now gathered that pro- 
crastination in excess was, or had become, a marking 
feature in Coleridge's daily life. Nobody who knew him 
ever thought of depending on any appointment he might 
make: spite of his uniformly honourable intentions, nobody 

20 attached any weight to his assurances m re fiitura : those 
who asked him to dinner or any other party, as a matter 
of course, sent a carriage for him, and went personally 
or by proxy to fetch him ; and, as to letters, unless the 
address were in some female hand that commanded his 

25 affectionate esteem, he tossed them all into one general 
dead-letter bureau,, and rarely, I believe, opened them at 
all. Bourrienne mentions a mode of abridging the trouble 
attached to a very extensive correspondence, by which 
infinite labour was saved to himself, and to Napoleon, 

30 when First Consul. Nine out of ten letters, supposing 
them letters of business with official applications of a 
special kind, he contends, answer themselves : in other 
words, time alone must soon produce events which vir- 
tually contain the answer. On this principle the letters 



A MEETING WITH COLERIDGE 119 

were opened periodically, after intervals, suppose, of six 
weeks ; and, at the end of that time, it was found that 
not many remained to require any further more particular 
answer. Coleridge's plan, however, was shorter : he opened 
none, I understood, and answered none. At least such 5 
was his habit at that time. But, on that same day, all 
this, which I heard now for the first time, and with much 
concern, was fully explained ; for already he was under 
the full dominion of opium, as he himself revealed to me, 
and with a deep expression of horror at the hideous bond- 10 
age, in a private walk of some length which I took with j 
him about sunset. 

Lord Egmont's information, and the knowledge now 
gained of Coleridge's habits, making it very uncertain 
when I might see him in my present hospitable quarters, 15 
I immediately took my leave of Mr. Poole, and went over 
to Bridgewater. I had received directions for finding out 
the house where Coleridge was visiting ; and, in riding 
down a main street of Bridgewater, I noticed a gateway 
corresponding to the description given me. Under this 20 
was standing, and gazing about him, a man whom I will 
describe. In height he might seem to be about five feet 
eight (he was, in reality, about an inch and a-half taller, 
but his figure was of an order which drowns the height) ; 
his person was broad and full, and tended even to corpu- 25 
lence ; his complexion was fair, though not what painters 
technically style fair, because it was associated with black 
hair ; his eyes were large, and soft in their expression ; 
and it was from the peculiar appearance of haze or dreami- 
ness which mixed with their light that I recognised my 30 
object. This was Coleridge. I examined him steadfastly 
for a minute or more ; and it struck me that he saw neither 
myself nor any other object in the street. He was in a 
deep reverie ; for I had dismounted, made two or three 



I20 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

trifling arrangements at an inn-door, and advanced close 
to him, before he had apparently become conscious of my 
presence. The sound of my voice, announcing my own 
name, first awoke him ; he started, and for a moment 
5 seemed at a loss to understand my purpose or his own 

\ situation ; for he repeated rapidly a number of words 
which had no relation to either of us. There was no 
maiivaise honte in his manner, but simple perplexity, and 
an apparent difficulty in recovering his position amongst 

10 daylight realities. This little scene over, he received me 
with a kindness of manner so marked that it might be 
called gracious. The hospitable family with whom he was 
domesticated were distinguished for their amiable manners 
and enlightened understandings : they were descendants 

15 from Chubb, the philosophic writer, and bore the same 
name. For Coleridge they all testified deep affection 
and esteem — sentiments in which the whole town of 
Bridgewater seemed to share ; for in the evening, when 
the heat of the day had declined, I walked out with him ; 

20 and rarely, perhaps never, have I seen a person so much 
interrupted in one hour's space as Coleridge, on this occa- 
sion, by the courteous attentions of young and old. 

All the people of station and weight in the place, and 
apparently all the ladies, were abroad to enjoy the lovely 

25 summer evening ; and not a party passed without some 
mark of smiling recognition, and the majority stopping to 
make personal inquiries about his health, and to express 
their anxiety that he should make a lengthened stay 
amongst them. Certain I am, from the lively esteem 

30 expressed towards Coleridge at this time by the people 
of Bridgewater, that a very large subscription might, in 
that town, have been raised to support him amongst them, 
in the character of a lecturer, or philosophical professor. 
Especially I remarked that the young men of the place 



A MEETING WITH COLERIDGE I2i 

manifested the most liberal interest in all that concerned 
him ; and I can add my attestation to that of Mr. Cole- 
ridge himself, when describing an evening spent amongst 
the enlightened tradesmen of Birmingham, that nowhere 
is more unaffected good sense exhibited, and particularly 5 
nowhere more elasticity and freshness of mind, than in the 
conversation of the reading men in manufacturing towns. 
In 'Kendal, especially, in Bridgewater, and in Manchester, 
I have witnessed more interesting conversations, as much 
information, and more natural eloquence in conveying it, 10 
than usually in literary cities, or in places professedly 
learned. One reason for this is that in trading towns 
the time is more happily distributed ; the day given to 
business and active duties — the evening to relaxation ; on 
which account, books, conversation, and literary leisure 15 
are more cordially enjoyed : the same satiation never can 
take place which too frequently deadens the genial enjoy- 
ment of those who have a surfeit of books and a monotony 
of leisure. Another reason is that more simplicity of man- 
ner may be expected, and more natural picturesqueness of 20 
conversation, more open expression of character, in places 
where people have no previous name to support. Men in 
trading towns are not afraid to open their lips for fear 
they should disappoint your expectations, nor do they | 
strain for showy sentiments that they may meet them. 25 
But, elsewhere, many are the men who stand in awe of 
their own reputation : not a word which is unstudied, not 
a movement in the spirit of natural freedom, dare they give 
way to, because it might happen that on review something 
would be seen to retract or to qualify — something not 3° 
properly planed and chiselled to build into the general 
architecture of an artificial reputation. But to return : — 

Coleridge led me to a drawing-room, rang the bell for 
refreshments, and omitted no point of a courteous reception. 



122 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

He told me that there would be a very large dinner 
party on that day, which, perhaps, might be disagreeable 
to a perfect stranger ; but, if not, he could assure me of 
a most hospitable welcome from the family. I was too 
5 anxious to see him under all aspects to think of declining 
this invitation. That point being settled, Coleridge, like 
some great river, the Orellana, or the St. Lawrence, that, 
having been checked and fretted by rocks and thwarting 
islands, suddenly recovers its volume of waters and its 

10 mighty music, swept at once, as if returning to his natural 
business, into a continuous strain of eloquent dissertation, 
certainly the most novel, the most finely illustrated, and 
traversing the most spacious fields of thought by transi- 
tions the most just and logical, that it was possible to 

15 conceive. What I mean by saying that his transitions 
were "just" is by way of contradistinction to that mode 
of conversation which courts variety through links of 
verbal connexions. Coleridge, to many people, and often 
I have heard the complaint, seemed to wander ; and he 

20 seemed then to wander the most when, in fact, his resist- 
ance to the wandering instinct was greatest — viz., when 
the compass and huge circuit by which his illustrations 
moved travelled farthest into remote regions before they 
began to revolve. Long before this coming round com- 

25 menced most people had lost him, and naturally enough 
supposed that he had lost himself. They continued to 
admire the separate beauty of the thoughts, but did not 
see their relations to the dominant theme. Had the con- 
versation been thrown upon paper, it might have been 

30 easy to trace the continuity of the links ; just as in Bishop 
Berkeley's "Siris,"^ from a pedestal so low and abject, so 

1 Seiri's ought to have been the title — i.e., Setpis, a chain. From 
this defect in the orthography, I did not in my boyish days perceive, 
nor could obtain any light upon, its meaning. 



A MEETING WITH COLERIDGE 123 

culinary, as Tar Water, the method of preparing it, and 
its medicinal effects, the dissertation ascends, like Jacob's 
ladder, by just gradations, into the Heaven of Heavens 
and the thrones of the Trinity. But Heaven is there 
connected with earth by the Homeric chain of gold ; 5 
and, being subject to steady examination, it is easy to 
trace the links ; whereas, in conversation, the loss of a 
single word may cause the whole cohesion to disappear 
from view. However, I can assert, upon my long and 
intimate knowledge of Coleridge's mind, that logic the 10 
most severe was as inalienable from his modes of thinking 
as grammar from his language. 



RECOLLECTIONS OF WORDSWORTH 

In 1807 it was, at the beginning of winter, that I first 
saw William Wordsworth. I have already mentioned that 
I had introduced myself to his notice by letter as early 
as the spring of 1803. To this hour it has continued, I 

S believe, a mystery to Wordsworth why it was that I suf- 
fered an interval of four and a half years to slip away 
before availing myself of the standing invitation with 
which I had been honoured to the poet's house. Very 
probably he accounted for this delay by supposing that 

10 the new-born liberty of an Oxford life, with its multiplied 
enjoyments, acting upon a boy just emancipated from the 
restraints of a school, and, in one hour, elevated into 
what we Oxonians so proudly and so exclusively denomi- 
nate "a man,"^ might have tempted me into pursuits 

15 alien from the pure intellectual passions which had so 
powerfully mastered my youthful heart some years before. 
Extinguished such a passion could not be ; nor could he 
think so, if remembering the fervour with which I had 
expressed it, the sort of "nympholepsy" which had seized 

20 upon me, and which, in some imperfect way, I had avowed 
with reference to the very lakes and mountains amongst 
which the scenery of this most original poetry had chiefly 

1 At the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, where the town is 
viewed as a mere ministerial appendage to the numerous colleges — the 
civic Oxford, for instance, existing for the sake of the academic Oxford, 
and not vice versd — it has naturally happened that the students honour 
with the name of "<z ina7i " him only who wears a cap and gown. 

124 



RECOLLECTIONS OF WORDSWORTH 



25 



grown up and moved. The very names of the ancient hills 
— Fairfield, Seat Sandal, Helvellyn, Blenca^hara, Glara- 
mara ; the names of the sequestered glens -^ such as Bor- 
rowdale, Martindale, Mardale, Wasdale, and Ennerdale ; 
but, above all, the shy pastoral recesses, not garishly in 5 
the world's eye, like Windermere or Derwentwater, but 
lurking half unknown to the traveller of that day — Gras- 
mere, for instance, the lovely abode of the poet himself, 
solitary, and yet sowed, as it were, with a thin diffusion 
of humble dwellings — here a scattering, and there a clus- 10 
tering, as in the starry heavens — sufficient to afford, at 
every turn and angle, human remembrances and memo- 
rials of time-honoured affections, or of passions (as the 
" Churchyard amongst the Mountains " will amply demon- 
strate) not wanting even in scenic and tragical interest : 15 
these were so many local spells upon me, equally poetic 
and elevating with the Miltonic names of Valdarno and 
Vallombrosa. 

Deep are the voices which seem to call, deep is the 
lesson which would be taught, even to the most thought- 20 
less of men — 

" Could field, or grove, or any spot of earth, 
Show to his eye an image of the pangs 
Which it hath witnessed ; render back an echo 
Of the sad steps by which it hath been trod.''^ 25 

Meantime, my delay was due to 'anything rather than to 
waning interest. On the contrary, the real cause of my delay 
was the too great profundity, and the increasing profundity, 
of my interest in this regeneration of our national poetry, 
and the increasing awe, in due proportion to the decaying 30 
thoughtlessness of boyhood, which possessed me for the 

^ See the divine passage (in the Sixth Book of "The Excursion") 
°^ ° " Ah, what a lesson to a thoughtless man," &c. 



126 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

character of its author. So far from neglecting Words- 
worth, it is a fact that twice I had undertaken a long 
journey expressly for the purpose of paying my respects 
to Wordsworth ; twice I came so far as the little rustic 

5 inn (then the sole inn of the neighbourhood) at Church 
Coniston ; and on neither occasion could I summon con- 
fidence enough to present myself before him. It was not 
that I had any want of proper boldness for facing the 
most numerous company of a mixed or ordinary char- 

10 acter: reserved, indeed, I was, perhaps even shy — from 
the character of my mind, so profoundly meditative, and 
the character of my life, so profoundly sequestered — 
but still, from counteracting causes, I was not deficient 
in a reasonable self-confidence towards the world gener- 

15 ally. But the very image of Wordsworth, as I prefigured 
it to my own planet-struck eye, crushed my faculties as 
before Elijah or St. Paul. Twice, as I have said, did I 
advance as far as the Lake of Coniston ; which is about 
eight miles from the church of Grasmere, and once I abso- 

20 lutely went forwards from Coniston to the very gorge of 
Hammerscar, from which the whole Vale of Grasmere sud- 
denly breaks upon the view in a style of almost theatrical 
surprise, with its lovely valley stretching before the eye 
in the distance, the lake lying immediately below, with 

25 its solemn ark-like island of four and a half acres in size 
seemingly floating on its surface, and its exquisite out- 
line on the opposite shore, revealing all its little bays ^ 
and wild sylvan margin, feathered to the edge with wild 
flowers and ferns. In one quarter, a little wood, stretch- 

30 ing for about half a mile towards the outlet of the lake ; 

1 All which inimitable graces of nature have, by the hands of 
mechanic art, by solid masonry, by whitewashing, &c., been extermi- 
nated, as a growth of weeds and nuisances, for thirty years. — August 
17,1853- 



RECOLLECTIONS OF WORDSWORTH 127 

more directly in opposition to the spectator, a few green 
fields ; and beyond them, just two bowshots from the 
water, a little white cottage gleaming from the midst of 
trees, with a vast and seemingly never-ending series of 
ascents rising above it to the height of more than three 5 
thousand feet. That little cottage was Wordsworth's from 
the time of his marriage, and earlier ; in fact, from the 
beginning of the century to the year 1808. Afterwards, 
for many a year, it was mine. Catching one hasty glimpse 
of this loveliest of landscapes, I retreated like a guilty 10 
thing, for fear I might be surprised by Wordsworth, and 
then returned faintheartedly to Coniston, and so to Oxford, 
7'e infecta. 

This was in 1806. And thus far, from mere excess of 
nervous distrust in my own powers for sustaining a con- 15 
versation with Wordsworth, I had for nearly five years 
shrunk from a meeting for which, beyond all things 
under heaven, I longed. In early youth I laboured under 
a peculiar embarrassment and penury of words, when I 
sought to convey my thoughts adequately upon interest- 20 
ing subjects : neither was it words only that I wanted ; 
but I could not unravel, I could not even make perfectly 
conscious to myself, the subsidiary thoughts into which 
one leading thought often radiates ; or, at least, I could 
not do this with anything like the rapidity requisite for 25 
conversation. I laboured like a sibyl instinct with the 
burden of prophetic woe, as often as I found myself deal- 
ing with any topic in which the understanding combined 
with deep feelings to suggest mixed and tangled thoughts : 
and thus partly — partly also from my invincible habit 30 
of reverie — at that era of my life, I had a most distin- 
guished talent ^^potir le silenced Wordsworth, from some- 
thing of the same causes, suffered (by his own report to 
myself) at the same age from pretty much the same 



128 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

infirmity. And yet, in more advanced years — probably 
about twenty-eight or thirty — both of us acquired a 
remarkable fluency in the art of unfolding our thoughts 
colloquially. However, at that period my deficiencies 

5 were what I have described. And, after all, though I 
had no absolute cause for anticipating contempt, I was 
so far right in my fears, that since that time I have 
had occasion to perceive a worldly tone of sentiment in 
Wordsworth, not less than in Mrs. Hannah More and 

10 other literary people, by which they were led to set a 
higher value upon a limited respect from a person high 
in the world's esteem than upon the most lavish spirit of 
devotion from an obscure quarter. Now, in that point, 
my feelings are far otherwise. 

15 Meantime, the world went on; events kept moving; 
and, amongst them, in the course of 1807, occurred the 
event of Coleridge's return to England from his official 
station in the Governor's family at Malta. At Bridge- 
water, as I have already recorded, in the summer of 1807, 

20 I was introduced to him. Several weeks after he came 
with his family to the Bristol Hot-Wells, at which, by 
accident, I was then visiting. On calling upon him, I 
found that he had been engaged by the Royal Institu- 
tion to lecture at their theatre in Albemarle Street dur- 

25 ing the coming winter of 1807-8, and, consequently, was 
embarrassed about the mode of conveying his family to 
Keswick. Upon this, I offered my services to escort them 
in a post-chaise. This offer was cheerfully accepted ; 
and at the latter end of October we set forwards — Mrs. 

30 Coleridge, viz., with her two sons — Hartley, aged nine, 
Derwent, about seven — her beautiful little daughterj:, 

1 That most accomplished, and to Coleridge most pious daughter, 
whose recent death afflicted so very many who knew her only by her 
writings. She had married her cousin, Mr. Serjeant Coleridge, and 



RECOLLECTIONS OF WORDSWORTH 129 

about five, and, finally, myself. Going by the direct 
route through Gloucester, Bridgenorth, &c., on the third 
day we reached Liverpool, where I took up my quarters 
at a hotel, whilst Mrs. Coleridge paid a visit of a few days 
to a very interesting family, who had become friends of 5 
Southey during his visit to Portugal. These were the 
Misses Koster, daughters of an English gold-merchant 
of celebrity, who had recently quitted Lisbon on the 
approach of the French army under Junot. Mr. Koster 
did me the honour to call at my quarters, and invite me 10 
to his house ; an invitation which I very readily accepted, 
and had thus an opportunity of becoming acquainted with 
a family the most accomplished I had ever known. At 
dinner there appeared only the family party — several 
daughters, and one son, a fine young man of twenty, 15 
but who was consciously dying of asthma. Mr. Koster, 
the head of the family, was distinguished for his good 
sense and practical information ; but, in Liverpool, even 
more so by his eccentric and obstinate denial of certain 
notorious events ; in particular, some two years later, he 20 
denied that any such battle as Talavera had ever been 
fought, and had a large wager depending upon the deci- 
sion. His house was the resort of distinguished for- 
eigners ; and, on the first evening of my dining there, as 
well as afterwards, I there met that marvel of women, 25 
Madame Catalani. I had heard her repeatedly ; but 
never before been near enough to see her smile and con- 
verse — even to be honoured with a smile myself. She 
and Lady Hamilton were the most effectively brilliant 

in that way retained her illustrious maiden name as a wife. At seven- 
teen, when last I saw her, she was the most perfect of all pensive, 
nun-like, intellectual beauties that I have seen in real breathing life. 
The upper parts of her face were verily divine. See, for an artist's 
opinion, the Life of that admirable man Collins, by his son. 



130 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

women I ever saw. However, on this occasion, the 
Misses Koster outshone even La Catalani ; to her they 
talked in the most fluent Italian ; to some foreign men, 
in Portuguese ; to one in French ; and to most of the 
5 party in English ; and each, by turns, seemed to be their 
native tongue. Nor did they shrink, even in the presence 
of the mighty enchantress, from exhibiting their musical 
skill. 

Leaving Liverpool, after about a week's delay, we pur- 

10 sued our journey northwards. We had slept on the first 
day at Lancaster. Consequently, at the rate of motion 
which then prevailed throughout England — which, how- 
ever, was rarely equalled on that western road, where all 
things were in arrear by comparison with the eastern and 

15 southern roacjs of the kingdom — we found ourselves, about 
three o'clock in the afternoon, at Ambleside, fourteen miles 
to the north-west of Kendal, and thirty-six from Lancaster. 
There, for the last time, we stopped to change horses ; and 
about four o'clock we found ourselves on the summit of 

20 the White Moss, a hill which rises between the second and 
third milestones on the stage from Ambleside to Keswick, 
and which then retarded the traveller's advance by a full 
fifteen minutes, but is now evaded by a lower line of road. 
In ascending this hill, from weariness of moving so slowly, 

25 I, with the two Coleridges, had alighted ; and, as we all 
chose to refresh ourselves by running down the hill into 
Grasmere, we had left the chaise behind us, and had even 
lost the sound of the wheels at times, when all at once 
we came, at an abrupt turn of the road, in sight of a white 

30 cottage, with two yew-trees breaking the glare of its white 
walls. A sudden shock seized me on recognising this 
cottage, of which, in the previous year, I had gained a 
momentary glimpse from Hammerscar, on the opposite 
side of the lake. I paused, and felt my old panic returning 



RECOLLECTIONS OF WORDSWORTH 



131 



upon me ; but just then, as if to take away all doubt upon 
the subject, I saw Hartley Coleridge, who had gained 
upon me considerably, suddenly turn in at a garden gate ; 
this motion to the right at once confirmed me in my belief 
that here at last we had reached our port ; that this little 5 
cottage was tenanted by that man whom, of all the men 
from the beginning of time, I most fervently desired to 
see ; that in less than a minute I should meet Wordsworth 
face to face. Coleridge was of opinion that, if a man 
were really and consciously to see an apparition, in such 10 
circumstances death would be the inevitable result ; and, 
if so, the wish which we hear so commonly expressed for 
such experience is as thoughtless as that of Semele in the 
Grecian Mythology, so natural in a female, that her lover 
should visit her en grand costume — presumptuous ambition, 15 
that unexpectedly wrought its own ruinous chastisement ! 
Judged by Coleridge's test, my situation could not have 
been so terrific as his who anticipates a ghost ; for, cer- 
tainly, I survived this meeting ; but at that instant it 
seemed pretty much the same to my own feelings. 20 

Never before or since can I reproach myself with having 
trembled at the approaching presence of any creature that 
is born of woman, excepting only, for once or twice in my 
life, woman herself. Now, however, I ^/V/ tremble; and I 
forgot, what in no other circumstances I could have for- 25 
gotten, to stop for the coming up of the chaise, that I might 
be ready to hand Mrs. Coleridge out. Had Charlemagne 
and all his peerage been behind me, or Caesar and his 
equipage, or Death on his pale horse, I should have for- 
gotten them at that moment of intense expectation, and of 30 
eyes fascinated to what lay before me, or what might in a 
moment appear. Through the little gate I pressed for- 
ward ; ten steps beyond it lay the principal door of the 
house. To this, no longer clearly conscious of my own 



132 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

feelings, I passed on rapidly ; I heard a step, a voice, and, 
like a flash of lightning, I saw the figure emerge of a 
tallish man, who held out his hand, and saluted me with 
most cordial expressions of welcome. The chaise, how- 
5 ever, drawing up to the gate at that moment, he (and there 
needed no Roman nomenclator to tell me that this he was 
Wordsworth) felt himself summoned to advance and receive 
Mrs. Coleridge. I, therefore, stunned almost with the act- 
ual accomplishment of a catastrophe so long anticipated 

lo and so long postponed, mechanically went forward into the 
house. A little semi-vestibule between two doors prefaced 
the entrance into what might be considered the principal 
room of the cottage. It was an oblong square, not above 
eight and a half feet high, sixteen feet long, and twelve 

15 broad; very prettily wainscoted from the floor to the ceil- 
ing with dark polished oak, slightly embellished with carv- 
ing. One window there was — a perfect and unpretending 
cottage window, with little diamond panes, embowered at 
almost every season of the year with roses, and in the 

20 summer and autumn with a profusion of jasmine and other 
fragrant shrubs. From the exuberant luxuriance of the 
vegetation around it, and from the dark hue of the wain- 
scoting, this window, though tolerably large, did not furnish 
a very powerful light to one who entered from the open air. 

25 However, I saw sufficiently to be aware of two ladies just 
entering the room, through a doorway opening upon a little 
staircase. The foremost, a tallish young w^oman, with the 
most winning expression of benignity upon her features, 
advanced to me, presenting her hand with so frank an air 

30 that all embarrassment must have fled in a moment before 
the native goodness of her manner. This was Mrs. Words- 
worth, cousin of the poet, and, for the last five years or 
more, his wife. She was now mother of two children, a 
son and a daughter ; and she furnished a remarkable proof 



RECOLLECTIONS OF WORDSWORTH 



ZZ 



how possible it is for a woman neither handsome nor even 
comely according to the rigour of criticism — nay, generally 
pronounced very plain — to exercise all the practical fas- 
cination of beauty, through the mere compensatory charms 
of sweetness all but angelic, of simplicity the most entire, 
womanly self-respect and purity of heart speaking through 
all her looks, acts, and movements. Words, I was going 
to have added; but her words were few. In reality, she 
talked so little that Mr. Slave-Trade Clarkson used to 
allege against her that she could only say " God bless lo 
yoii!'^ Certainly, her intellect was not of an active order; 
but, in a quiescent, reposing, meditative way, she appeared 
always to have a genial enjoyment from her own thoughts ; 
and it would have been strange, indeed, if she, who enjoyed 
such eminent advantages of training, from the daily society 15 
of her husband and his sister, failed to acquire some power 
of judging for herself, and putting forth some functions of 
activity. But undoubtedly that was not her element : to 
feel and to enjoy in a luxurious repose of mind — there 
was her fo}'te and her peculiar privilege ; and how much 20 
better this was adapted to her husband's taste, how much 
more adapted to uphold the comfort of his daily life, than 
a blue-stocking loquacity, or even a legitimate talent for 
discussion, may be inferred from his verses, beginning — 

" She was a phantom of delight, 25 

When first she gleam'd upon my sight." 

Once for all,^ these exquisite lines were dedicated to Mrs. 
Wordsworth ; were understood to describe her — to have 
been prompted by the feminine graces of her character ; 

1 Once for all, I say — on recollecting that Coleridge's verses to 
Sara were made transferable to any Sara who reigned at the time. 
At least three Saras appropriated them; all three long since in the 
grave. 



134 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

hers they are, and will remain for ever. To these, therefore, 
I may refer the reader for an idea of what was most impor- 
tant in the partner and second self of the poet. And I will 
add to this abstract of her moral portrait these few con- 

S eluding traits of her appearance in a physical sense. Her 
figure was tolerably good. In complexion she was fair, 
and there was something peculiarly pleasing even in this 
accident of the skin, for it was accompanied by an ani- 
mated expression of health, a blessing which, in fact, she 

lo possessed uninterruptedly. Her eyes, the reader may 
already know, were 

" Like stars of twilight fair ; 

Like twilight, too, her dark brown hair; 
But all things else about her drawn 
15 From May-time and the cheerful dawn." 

Yet strange it is to tell that, in these eyes of vesper gentle- 
ness, there was a considerable obliquity of vision ; and 
much beyond that slight obliquity which is often supposed 
to be an attractive foible in the countenance: this ought to 

20 have been displeasing or repulsive ; yet, in fact, it was not. 
Indeed all faults, had they been ten times more and 
greater, would have been neutralized by that supreme 
expression of her features to the unity of which every 
lineament in the fixed parts, and every undulation in the 

25 moving parts, of her countenance, concurred, viz., a sunny 
benignity — a radiant graciousness — such as in this 
world I never saw surpassed. 

Immediately behind her moved a lady, shorter, slighter, 
and perhaps, in all other respects, as different from her 

30 in personal characteristics as could have been wished for 
the most effective contrast. " Her face was of Egyptian 
brown " ; rarely, in a woman of English birth, had I seen 
a more determinate gipsy tan. Her eyes were not soft, as 



RECOLLECTIONS OF WORDSWORTH 



135 



Mrs. Wordsworth's, nor were they fierce or bold; but they 
were wild and startling, and hurried in their motion. Her 
manner was warm and even ardent; her sensibilities seemed 
constitutionally deep ; and some subtle fire of impassioned 
intellect apparently burned within her, which, being alter- 5 
nately pushed forward into a conspicuous expression by the 
irrepressible instincts of her temperament, and then imme- 
diately checked, in obedience to the decorum of her sex 
and age, and her maidenly condition, gave to her whole 
demeanour, and to her conversation, an air of embarrass- 10 
ment, and even of self-conflict, that was almost distressing 
to witness. Even her very utterance and enunciation often 
suffered, in point of clearness and steadiness, from the 
agitation of her excessive organic sensibility. At times, 
the self-counteraction and self-baffling of her feelings caused 15 
her even to stammer, and so determinately to stammer 
that a stranger who should have seen her and quitted her 
in that state of feeling would certainly set her down for 
one plagued with that infirmity of speech as distressingly 
as Charles Lamb himself. This was Miss Wordsworth, the \o 
only sister of the poet — his " Dorothy " ; w^ho naturally 
owed so much to the lifelong intercourse with her great 
brother in his most solitary and sequestered years ; but, on 
the other hand, to whom he has acknowledged obligations 
of the profoundest nature ; and, in particular, this mighty 25 
one, through which we also, the admirers and the wor- 
shippers of this great poet, are become equally her debtors 
— that, whereas the intellect of Wordsworth was, by its 
original tendency, too stern, too austere, too much enam- 
oured of an ascetic harsh sublimity, she it was — the lady 30 
who paced by his side continually through sylvan and moun- 
tain tracks, in Highland glens, and in the dim recesses of 
German charcoal-burners — that first couched \i\^ ^y& to the 
sense of beauty, humanised him by the gentler charities, 



136 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

and engrafted, with her delicate female touch, those graces 
upon the ruder growths of his nature which have since 
clothed the forest of his genius with a foliage correspond- 
ing in loveliness and, beauty to the strength of its boughs 
5 and the massiness of its trunks. The greatest deductions 
from Miss Wordsworth's attractions, and from the exceed- 
ing interest which surrounded her in right of her character, 
of her history, and of the relation which she fulfilled 
towards her brother, were the glancing quickness of her 

10 motions, and other circumstances in her deportment (such 
as her stooping attitude when walking), which gave an 
ungraceful, and even an unsexual character to her appear- 
ance when out-of-doors. She did not cultivate the graces 
which preside over the person and its carriage. But, on 

15 the other hand, she was a person of very remarkable 
endowments intellectually ; and, in addition to the other 
great services which she rendered to her brother, this I 
may mention, as greater than all the rest, and it was one 
which equally operated to the benefit of every casual com- 

20 panion in a walk — viz., the exceeding sympathy, always 
ready and always profound, by which she made all that 
one could tell her, all that one could describe, all that one 
could quote from a foreign author, reverberate, as it were, 
a plusieurs reprises^ to one's own feelings, by the manifest 

25 impression it made upon hers. The pulses of light are not 
more quick or more inevitable in their flow and undulation, 
than were the answering and echoing movements of her 
sympathising attention. Her knowledge of literature was 
irregular, and thoroughly unsystematic. She was content 

30 to be ignorant of many things ; but what she knew and 
had really mastered lay where it could not be disturbed — j 
in the temple of her own most fervid heart. 

Such were the two ladies who, with himself and two 
children, and at that time one servant, composed the poet's 



RECOLLECTIONS OF WORDSWORTH 137 

household. They were both, I believe, about twenty-eight 
years old ; and, if the reader inquires about the single point 
which I have left untouched in their portraiture — viz., the 
style of their manners — I may say that it was, in some 
points, naturally of a plain household simplicity, but every 5 
way pleasing, unaffected, and (as respects Mrs. Words- 
worth) even dignified. Few persons had seen so little as 
this lady of the world. She had seen nothing of high life, 
for she had seen little of any. Consequently, she was 
unacquainted with the conventional modes of behaviour, 10 
prescribed in particular situations by high breeding. But, 
as these modes are little more than the product of dis- 
passionate good sense, applied to the circumstances of the 
case, it is surprising how few deficiencies are perceptible, 
even to the most vigilant eye — or, at least, essential defi- 15 
ciencies — in the general demeanour of any unaffected 
young woman, acting habitually under a sense of sexual 
dignity and natural courtesy. Miss Wordsworth had seen 
more of life, and even of good company; for she had lived, 
when quite a girl, under the protection of Dr. Cookson, a 20 
near relative, canoi;i of Windsor, and a personal favourite 
of the Royal Family, especially of George III. Conse- 
quently, she ought to have been the more polished of the 
two; and yet, from greater natural aptitudes for refinement 
of manner in her sister-in-law, and partly, perhaps, from her 25 
more quiet and subdued manner, Mrs. Wordsworth would 
have been pronounced very much the more lady-like person. 

From the interest which attaches to anybody so nearly 
connected as these two ladies with a great poet, I have 
allowed myself a larger latitude than else might have been 30 
justifiable in describing them. I now go on with my 
narrative : — 

I was ushered up a little flight of stairs, fourteen in all, 
to a little drawing-room, or whatever the reader chooses to 



138 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

call it. Wordsworth himself has described the fireplace of 
this room as his 

" Half-kitchen and half-parlour fire." 

It was not fully seven feet six inches high, and, in other 

5 respects, pretty nearly of the same dimensions as the rustic 
hall below. There was, however, in a small recess, a 

^ library of perhaps three hundred volumes, which seemed 
to consecrate the room as the poet's study and composing 
room ; and such occasionally it was. But far oftener he 

10 both studied, as I found, and composed, on the high road. 
I had not been two minutes at the fireside, when in came 
Wordsworth, returning from his friendly attentions to the 
travellers below, who, it seemed, had been over-persuaded 
by hospitable solicitations to stay for this night in Gras- 

15 mere, and to make out the remaining thirteen miles of 
their road to Keswick on the following day. Wordsworth 
entered. And " what-like " — to use a Westmoreland as 
well as a Scottish expression — '■'"what-like^^ was Words- 
worth? A reviewer in "Tait's Magazine," noticing some 

20 recent collection of literary portraits, gives it as his opinion 
that Charles Lamb's head was the finest among them.^ 
This remark may have been justified by the engraved por- 
traits; but, certainly, the critic would have cancelled it, had 
he seen the original heads — at least, had he seen them in 

25 youth or in maturity ; for Charles Lamb bore age with less 
disadvantage to the intellectual expression of his appear- 

* ance than Wordsworth, in whom a sanguine complexion had, 
of late years, usurped upon the original bronze-tint; and this 
change of hue, and change in the quality of skin, had been 

30 made fourfold more conspicuous, and more unfavourable 
in its general effect, by the harsh contrast of grizzled hair 
which had displaced the original brown. No change in 

1 Vol. iv. p. 793 (Dec. 1837). 



RECOLLECTIONS OF WORDSWORTH 



139 



personal appearance ever can have been so unfortunate ; 
for, generally speaking, whatever other disadvantages old 
age may bring along with it, one effect, at least in male 
subjects, has a compensating tendency — that it removes 
any tone of vigour too harsh, and mitigates the expression 5 
of power too unsubdued. But, in Wordsworth, the effect 
of the change has been to substitute an air of animal 
vigour, or, at least, hardiness, as if derived from constant 
exposure to the wind and weather, for the fine sombre / 
complexion which he once wore, resembling that of a/io 
Venetian senator or a Spanish monk. / i 

Here, however, in describing the personal appearance of 
Wordsworth, I go back, of course, to the point of time at 
which I am speaking. He was, upon the whole, not a well- 
made man. His legs were pointedly condemned by all 15 
female connoisseurs in legs ; not that they were bad in any 
way which would force itself upon your notice — there was 
no absolute deformity about them ; and undoubtedly they 
had been serviceable legs beyond the average standard of 
human requisition ; for I calculate, upon good data, that 20 
with these identical legs Wordsworth must have traversed 
a distance of 175,000 to 180,000 English miles — a mode 
of exertion which, to him, stood in the stead of alcohol and 
all other stimulants whatsoever to the animal spirits ; to 
which, indeed, he was indebted for a life of unclouded hap- 25 
piness, and we for much of what is most excellent in his 
writings. But, useful as they have proved themselves, the 
Wordsworthian legs were certainly not ornamental ; and it 
was really a pity, as I agreed with a lady in thinking, that 
he had not another pair for evening dress parties — when no 30 
boots lend their friendly aid to mask our imperfections from 
the eyes of female rigorists — those elegantes for7narum speda- 
trices. A sculptor would certainly have disapproved of their 
contour. But the worst part of Wordsworth's person was 



I40 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

the bust ; there was a narrowness and a droop about the 
shoulders which became striking, and had an effect of mean- 
ness, when brought into close juxtaposition with a figure of 
a more statuesque build. Once on a summer evening, walk- 

5 ing in the Vale of Langdale with Wordsworth, his sister, and 

Mr. J , a native Westmoreland clergyman, I remember 

that Miss Wordsworth was positively mortified by the pecu- 
liar illustration which settled upon this defective conforma- 
tion. Mr. J , a fine towering figure, six feet high, massy 

lo and columnar in his proportions, happened to be walking, 
a little in advance, with Wordsworth ; Miss Wordsworth 
and myself being in the rear ; and from the nature of the 
conversation which then prevailed in our front rank, some- 
thing or other about money, devises, buying and selling, 

15 we of the rear-guard thought it requisite to preserve this 
arrangement for a space of three miles or more; during 
which time, at intervals, Miss Wordsworth would exclaim, in 
a tone of vexation, " Is it possible, — can that be William ? 
How very mean he looks ! " And she did not conceal a 

20 mortification that seemed really painful, until I, for my part, 
could not forbear laughing outright at the serious interest 
which she carried into this trifle. She was, however, right, 
as regarded the mere visual judgment. Wordsworth's figure, 
with all its defects, was brought into powerful relief by one 

25 which had been cast in a more square and massy mould ; 
and in such a case it impressed a spectator with a sense of 
absolute meanness, more especially when viewed from behind 
and not counteracted by his countenance ; and yet Words- 
worth was of a good height (five feet ten), and not a slender 

30 man ; on the contrary, by the side of Southey, his limbs 
looked thick, almost in a disproportionate degree. But the 
total effect of Wordsworth's person w^as always worst in a 
state of motion. Meantime, his face — that was one which 
would have made amends for greater defects of figure. 



kECOLLECTIONS OF WORDSWORTH 141 

Many such, and finer, I have seen amongst the portraits of 
Titian, and, in a later period, amongst those of Vandyke, 
from the great era of Charles I, as also from the court 
of Elizabeth and of Charles II, but none which has more 
impressed me in my own time. 5 

Haydon, in his great picture of ** Christ's Entry into 
Jerusalem," has introduced Wordsworth in the character of 
a disciple attending his Divine Master, and Voltaire in the 
character of a sneering Jewish elder. This fact is well 
known ; and, as the picture itself is tolerably well known 10 
to the public eye, there are multitudes now living who will 
have seen a very impressive likeness of Wordsworth — some 
consciously, some not suspecting it. There will, however, 
always be many who have not seen any portrait at all of 
Wordsworth; and therefore I will describe its general out- 15 
line and effect. It was a face of the long order, often 
falsely classed as oval : but a greater mistake is made by 
many people in supposing the long face which prevailed so 
remarkably in the Elizabethan and Carolinian periods to 
have become extinct in our own. Miss Ferrier, in one of 20 
her novels ("Marriage," I think), makes a Highland girl 
protest that " no Englishman tvith his round face " shall ever 
wean her heart from her own country ; but England is not 
the land of round faces ; and those have observed little, 
indeed, who think so : France it is that grows the round 25 
face, and in so large a majority of her provinces that it 
has become one of the national characteristics. And the 
remarkable impression which an Englishman receives from 
the eternal recurrence of the orbicular countenance proves 
of itself, without any conscious testimony, how the fact 30 
stands ; in the blind sense of a monotony, not felt else- 
where, lies involved an argument that cannot be gainsaid. 
Besides, even upon an a priori argument, how is it possible 
that the long face so prevalent in England, by all confession, 



142 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

in certain splendid eras of our history, should have had 
time, in some five or six generations, to grow extinct ? 
Again, the character of face varies essentially in different 
provinces. Wales has no connexion in this respect with 
5 Devonshire, nor Kent with Yorkshire, nor either with West- 
- moreland. England, it is true, tends, beyond all known 
examples, to a general amalgamation of differences, by 
means of its unrivalled freedom of intercourse. Yet, even 
in England, law and necessity have opposed as yet such 

10 and so many obstacles to the free diffusion of labour that 
every generation occupies, by at least five-sixths of its 
numbers, the ground of its ancestors. 

The movable part of a population is chiefly the higher 
part ; and it is the lower classes that, in every nation, com- 

15 pose the fundus^ in which lies latent the national face, as 
well as the national character. Each exists here in racy 
purity and integrity, not disturbed in the one by alien 
intermarriages, nor in the other by novelties of opinion, or 
other casual effects, derived from education and reading. 

20 Now, look into this fundus^ and you will find, in many dis- 
tricts, no such prevalence of the round orbicular face as 
some people erroneously suppose ; and in Westmoreland, 
especially, the ancient long face of the Elizabethan period, 
powerfully resembling in all its lineaments the ancient 

25 Roman face, and often (though not so uniformly) the face 
of northern Italy in modern times. The face of Sir Walter 
Scott, as Irving, the pulpit orator, once remarked to me, 
was the indigenous face of the Border : the mouth, which 
was bad, and the entire lower part of the face, are seen 

30 repeated in thousands of working-men ; or, as Irving chose 
to illustrate his position, " in thousands of Border horse- 
jockeys." In like manner, Wordsworth's face was, if not 
absolutely the indigenous face of the Lake district, at any 
rate a variety of that face, a modification of that original 



RECOLLECTIONS OF WORDSWORTH 143 

type. The head was well filled out ; and there, to begin 
with, was a great advantage over the head of Charles Lamb, 
which was absolutely truncated in the posterior region — 
sawn off, as it were, by no timid sawyer. The forehead 
was not remarkably lofty — and, by the way, some artists, 5 
in their ardour for realising their phrenological precon- 
ceptions, not suffering nature to surrender quietly and by 
slow degrees her real alphabet of signs and hieroglyphic 
characters, but forcing her language prematurely into con- 
formity with their own crude speculations, have given to 10 
Sir Walter Scott a pile of forehead which is unpleasing and 
cataphysical, in fact, a caricature of anything that is ever 
seen in nature, and would (if real) be esteemed a deformity ; 
in one instance — that which was introduced in some animal 
or other — the forehead makes about two-thirds of the entire 15 
face. Wordsworth's forehead is also liable to caricature 
misrepresentations in these days of phrenology : but, what- 
ever it may appear to be in any man's fanciful portrait, the 
real living forehead, as I have been in the habit of seeing 
it for more than five-and-twenty years, is not remarkable 20 
for its height ; but it />, perhaps, remarkable for its breadth 
and expansive development. Neither are the eyes of Words- 
worth "large," as is erroneously stated somewhere in "Peter's 
Letters " ; on the contrary, they are (I think) rather small ; 
but that does not interfere with their effect, which at times 25 
is fine, and suitable to his intellectual character. At times, 
I say, for the depth and subtlety of eyes, even their colour- 
ing (as to condensation or dilation), varies exceedingly with 
the state of the stomach ; and, if young ladies were aware 
of the magical transformations which can be wrought in 30 
the depth and sweetness of the eye by a few weeks' walking 
exercise, I fancy we should see their habits in this point 
altered greatly for the better. I have seen Wordsworth's 
eyes oftentimes affected powerfully in this respect; his 



144 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

eyes are not, under any circumstances, bright, lustrous, or 
piercing ; but, after a long day's toil in walking, I have 
seen them assume an appearance the most solemn and 
spiritual that it is possible for the human eye to wear. 
5 The light which resides in them is at no time a superficial 
light ; but, under favourable accidents, it is a light which 
seems to come from unfathomed depths : in fact, it is more 
truly entitled to be held " the light that never was on land 
or sea," a light radiating from som.e far spiritual world, 

10 than any the most idealising that ever yet a painter's hand 
created. The nose, a little arched, is large ; which, by the 
\vay (according to a natural phrenology, existing centuries 
ago amongst some of the lowest amongst the human spe- 
cies), has always been accounted an unequivocal expression 

15 of animal appetites organically strong. And that expressed 
the simple truth : Wordsworth's intellectual passions were 
fervent and strong : but they rested upon a basis of preter- 
natural animal sensibility diffused through all the animal 
passions (or appetites) ; and something of that will be found 

20 to hold of all poets who have been great by original force 
and power, not (as Virgil) by means of fine management 
and exquisite artifice of composition applied to their con- 
ceptions. The mouth, and the whole circumjacencies of 
the mouth, composed the strongest feature in Wordsworth's 

25 face ; there was nothing specially to be noticed that I know 
of in the mere outline of the lips ; but the swell and pro- 
trusion of the parts above and around the mouth are both 
noticeable in themselves, and also because they remind me 
of a very interesting fact which I discovered about three 

30 years after this my first visit to Wordsworth. 

Being a great collector of everything relating to Milton, 
I had naturally possessed myself, whilst yet very young, of 
Richardson the painter's thick octavo volume of notes on 
the " Paradise Lost." It happened, however, that my copy, 



RECOLLECTIONS OF WORDSWORTH 145 

in consequence of that mania for portrait collecting which 
has stripped so many English classics of their engraved 
portraits, wanted the portrait of Milton. Subsequently I 
ascertained that it ought to have had a very good likeness 
of the great poet ; and I never rested until I procured a 5 
copy of the book which had not suffered in this respect by 
the fatal admiration of the amateur. The particular copy 
offered to me was one which had been priced unusually 
high, on account of the unusually fine specimen which it 
contained of the engraved portrait. This, for a particular 10 
reason, I was exceedingly anxious to see ; and the reason 
was — that, according to an anecdote reported by Richard- 
son himself, this portrait, of all that were shown to her, 
was the only one acknowledged by Milton's last surviving 
daughter to be a strong likeness of her father. And her 15 
involuntary gestures concurred with her deliberate words : 
— for, on seeing all the rest, she was silent and inanimate ; 
but the very instant she beheld that crayon drawing from 
which is derived the engraved head in Richardson's book, 
she burst out into a rapture of passionate recognition ; 20 
exclaiming — " That is my father ! that is my dear father ! " 
Naturally, therefore, after such a testimony, so much 
stronger than any other person in the world could offer 
to the authentic value of this portrait, I was eager to 
see it. 25 

Judge of my astonishment when, in this portrait of 
Milton, I saw a likeness nearly perfect of Wordsworth, 
better by much than any which I have since seen of those 
expressly painted for himself. The likeness is tolerably 
preserved in that by Carruthers, in which one of the little 3° 
Rydal waterfalls, &c., composes a background ; yet this is 
much inferior, as a mere portrait of Wordsworth, to the 
Richardson head of Milton ; and this, I believe, is the last 
which represents Wordsworth in the vigour of his power. 



146 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 



^ 



The rest, which I have not seen, may be better as works of 
art (for anything I know to the contrary), but they must 
labour under the great disadvantage of presenting the fea- 
tures when *' defeatured," in the degree and the way I 
5 have described, by the peculiar ravages of old age, as it 
affects this family ; for it is noticed of the Wordsworths, 
by those who are familiar with their peculiarities, that in 
their very blood and constitutional differences lie hidden 
causes that are able, in some mysterious way, 

10 " Those shocks of passion to prepare 

That kill the bloom before its time, 
And blanch, without the owner's crime, 
The most resplendent hair." 

Some people, it is notorious, live faster by much than 

1 5 others ; the oil is burned out sooner in one constitution 
than another : and the cause of this may be various ; but 
in the Wordsworths one part of the cause is, no doubt, 
the secret fire of a temperament too fervid ; the self-con- 
suming energies of the brain, that gnaw at the heart and 

20 life-strings for ever. In that account which ''The Excur- 
sion " presents to us of an imaginary Scotsman who, to still 
the tumult of his heart, when visiting the cataracts of a 
mountainous region, obliges himself to study the laws of 
light and colour as they affect the rainbow of the stormy 

-5 waters, vainly attempting to mitigate the fever which con- 
sumed him by entangling his mind in profound specula- 
tions ; raising a cross-fire of artillery from the subtilising 
intellect, under the vain conceit that in this way he could 
silence the mighty battery of his impassioned heart : there 

30 we read a picture of Wordsworth and his own youth. In 
Miss Wordsworth every thoughtful observer might read 
the same self-consuming style of thought. And the effect 
upon each was so powerful for the promotion of a pre- 



RECOLLECTIONS OF WORDSWORTH 147 

mature old age, and of a premature expression of old age, 
that strangers invariably supposed them fifteen to twenty 
years older than they were. And I remember Wordsworth 
once laughingly reporting to me, on returning from a short 
journey in 1809, a little personal anecdote, which sufifi- 5 
ciently showed what was the spontaneous impression upon 
that subject of casual strangers, whose feelings were not 
confused by previous knowledge of the truth. He was 
travelling by a stage-coach, and seated outside, amongst a 
good half-dozen of fellow-passengers. One of these, an 10 
elderly man, who confessed to having passed the grand 
climacterical year (9 multiplied into 7) of 63, though he did 
not say precisely by how many years, said to Wordsworth, 
upon some anticipations which they had been mutually dis- 
cussing of changes likely to result from enclosures, &c., 15 
then going on or projecting — "Ay, ay, another dozen of 
years will show us strange sights ; but you and I can hardly 
expect to see them." — "How so.'"' said Wordsworth. 
" How so, my friend ? How old do you take me to be?" 
— "Oh, I beg pardon," said the other; "I meant no 20 
offence — but what ? " looking at Wordsworth more atten- 
tively — "you'll never see threescore, I'm of opinion"; 
meaning to say that Wordsworth had seen it already. 
And, to show that he was not singular in so thinking, he 
appealed to all the other passengers ; and the motion 25 
passed {neni. con.) that Wordsworth was rather over than 
under sixty. Upon this he told them the literal truth — 
that he had not yet accomplished his thirty-ninth year. 
"God bless me ! " said the climacterical man; "so then, 
after all, you'll have a chance to see your childer get up 30 
like, and get settled ! Only to think of that ! " And so 
closed the conversation, leaving to Wordsworth an unde- 
niable record of his own prematurely expressed old age in 
this unaffected astonishment, amongst a whole party of 



148 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

plain men, that he could really belong to a generation of 
the forward-looking, who live by hope ; and might reason- 
ably expect to see a child of seven years old matured into 
a man. And yet, as Wordsworth lived into his Szd year, 
5 it is plain that the premature expression of decay does not 
argue any real decay. 

Returning to the question of portraits, I would observe 
that this Richardson engraving of Milton has the advantage 
of presenting, not only by far the best likeness of Words- 

10 worth, but of Wordsworth in the prime of his powers — a 
point essential in the case of one so liable to premature 
decay. It may be supposed that I took an early opportu- 
nity of carrying the book down to Grasmere, and calling 
for the opinions of Wordsworth's family upon this most 

15 remarkable coincidence. Not one member of that family 
but was as much impressed as myself with the accuracy of 
the likeness. All the peculiarities even were retained — a 
drooping appearance of the eyelids, that remarkable swell 
which I have noticed about the mouth, the way in which 

20 the hair lay upon the forehead. In two points only there 
was a deviation from the rigorous truth of Wordsworth's 
features — the face was a little too short and too broad, and 
the eyes were too large. There was also a wreath of laurel 
about the head, which (as Wordsworth remarked) disturbed 

25 the natural expression of the whole picture ; else, and with 
these few allowances, he also admitted that the resem- 
blance was, for that period of his life, perfect, or as nearly 
so as art could accomplish. 

I have gone into so large and circumstantial a review of 

30 my recollections on this point as would have been trifling 
and tedious in excess, had these recollections related to a 
less important man ; but I have a certain knowledge that 
the least of them will possess a lasting and a growing 
interest in connexion with William Wordsworth. How 



RECOLLECTIONS OF WORDSWORTH 



149 



peculiar, how different from the interest which we grant 
to the ideas of a great philosopher, a great mathematician, 
or a great reformer, is that burning interest which settles 
on the great poets who have made themselves necessary to 
the human heart ; who have first brought into conscious- 5 
ness, and have clothed in words, those grand catholic feel- 
ings that belong to the grand catholic situations of life 
through all its stages ; who have clothed them in such 
words that human wit despairs of bettering them ! Mighty 
were the powers, solemn and serene is the memory, of 10 
Archimedes ; and Apollonius shines like " the starry 
Galileo " in the firmament of human genius ; yet how frosty 
is the feeling associated with these names by comparison 
with that ^yhich, upon every sunny lawn, by the side of 
every ancient forest, even in the farthest depths of Canada, 15 
many a young innocent girl, perhaps at this very moment 
— looking now with fear to the dark recesses of the infinite 
forest, and now with love to the pages of the infinite poet, 
until the fear is absorbed and forgotten in the love — cher- 
ishes in her heart for the name and person of Shakspere ! 20 

The English language is travelling fast towards the ful- 
filment of its destiny. Through the influence of the dread- 
ful Republic^ that within the thirty last years has run 

1 Not many months ago, the blind hostility of the Irish newspaper 
editors in America forged a ludicrous estimate of the Irish numerical 
preponderance in the United States, from which it was inferred, as at 
least a possibility, that the Irish Celtic language might come to dispute 
the pre-eminence with the English. Others anticipated the same 
destiny for the German. But, in the meantime, the unresting career of 
the law-courts, of commerce, and of the national senate, that cannot sus- 
pend themselves for an hour, reduce the case to this dilemma : If the 
Irish and the Germans in the United States adapt their general schemes 
of education to the service of their public ambition, they must begin by 
training themselves to the use of the language now prevaiHng on all the 
available stages of ambition. On the other hand, by refusing to do 



150 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

through all the stages of infancy into the first stage of 
maturity, and through the English colonies — African, 
Canadian, Indian, Australian — the English language 
(and, therefore, the English literature) is running forward 

5 towards its ultimate mission of eating up, like Aaron's rod, 
all other languages. Even the German and the Spanish 
will inevitably sink before it; perhaps within 100 or 150 
years. In the recesses of California, in the vast solitudes 
of Australia, The Churchyard amongst the Mountains, from 

10 Wordsworth's "Excursion," and many a scene of his 
shorter poems, will be read, even as now Shakspere is read 
amongst the forests of Canada. All which relates to the 
writer of these poems will then bear a value of the same 
kind as that which attaches to our personal memorials 

15 (unhappily so slender) of Shakspere. 

this, they lose in the very outset every point of advantage. In other 
words, adopting the English, they renounce the contest — not adopting 
it, they disqualify themselves for the contest. 



CONFESSIONS OF AN ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER 

To THE Reader. 

I HERE present you, courteous reader, with the record 
of a remarkable period in my life : according to my appli- 
cation of it, I trust that it will prove, not merely an 
interesting record, but, in a considerable degree, useful 
and instructive. In that hope it is, that I have drawn it 5 
up : and that must be my apology for breaking through 
that delicate and honourable reserve, which, for the most 
part, restrains us from the public exposure of our own 
errors and infirmities. Nothing, indeed, is more revolting 
to English feelings, than the spectacle of a human being 10 
obtruding on our notice his moral ulcers and scars, and 
tearing away that ' decent drapery,' which time, or indul- 
gence to human frailty, may have drawn over them : 
accordingly, the greater part of our confessions (that is, 
spontaneous and extra-judicial confessions) proceed from 15 
demireps, adventurers, or swindlers : and for any such acts 
of gratuitous self-humiliation from those who can be sup- 
posed in sympathy with the decent and self-respecting part 
of society, we must look to French literature, or to that 
part of the German which is tainted with the spurious and 20 
defective sensibility of the French. All this I feel so 
forcibly, and so nervously am I alive to reproach of this 
tendency, that I have for many months hesitated about 
the propriety of allowing this, or any part of my narra- 
tive, to come before the public eye, until after my death, 25 
when, for many reasons, the whole will be published : and 
it is not without an anxious review-~.Qf_thereasonsfo.r 

151 



152 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

and against this step that I have, at last, concluded on 
taking it. 

Guilt and misery shrink, by a natural instinct, from 
public notice : they court privacy and solitude : and, even 
5 in their choice of a grave, will sometimes sequester them- 
selves from the general population of the churchyard, as if 
declining to claim fellowship with the great family of man, 
and wishing (in the affecting language of Mr. Wordsworth) 

" — humbly to express 
jQ A penitential loneliness." 

It is well, upon the whole, and for the interest of us all, 
that it should be so : nor would I willingly, in my own 
person, manifest a disregard of such salutary feelings ; nor 
in act or word do anything to weaken them. But, on the 

15 one hand, as my self-accusation does not amount to a con- 
fession of guilt, so, on the other, it is possible that, if it 
did^ the benefit resulting to others from the record of an 
experience purchased at so heavy a price, might compen- 
sate, by a vast overbalance, for any violence done to the 

20 feelings I have noticed, and justify a breach of the general 
rule. Infirmity and misery do not, of necessity, imply 
guilt. They approach, or recede from, the shades of that 
dark alliance, in proportion to the probable motives and 
prospects of the offender, and the palliations, known or 

25 secret, of the offence: in proportion as the temptations to 
it were potent from the first, and the resistance to it, in 
act or in effort, was earnest to the last. For my own part, 
without breach of truth or modesty, I may affirm, that my 
life has been, on the whole, the life of a philosopher: from 

30 my birth I was made an intellectual creature : and intel- 
lectual in the highest sense my pursuits and pleasures have 
been, even from my schoolboy days. If opium-eating be 
a sensual pleasure, and if I am bound to confess that I 



CONFESSIONS OF AN ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER 153 

have indulged in it to an excess not yet recorded^ of any- 
other man, it is no less true that I have struggled against 
this fascinating enthralment with a religious zeal, and 
have, at length, accomplished what I never yet heard attri- 
buted to any other man — have untwisted, almost to its final 5 
links, the accursed chain which fettered me. Such a self- 
conquest may reasonably be set off in counterbalance to 
any kind or degree of self-indulgence. Not to insist that, 
in my case, the self-conquest was unquestionable, the self- 
indulgence open to doubts of casuistry, according as that 10 
name shall be extended to acts aiming at the bare relief of 
pain, or shall be restricted to such as aim at the excite- 
ment of positive pleasure. 

Guilt, therefore, I do not acknowledge : and, if I did, it 
is possible that I might still resolve on the present act of 15 
confession, in consideration of the service which I may 
thereby render to the whole class of opium-eaters. But 
who are they ? Reader, I am sorry to say, a very numer- 
ous class indeed. Of this I became convinced some years 
ago, by computing, at that time, the number of those 20 
in one small class of English society — the class of men 
distinguished for talents, or of eminent station, — who 
were known to me, directly or indirectly, as opium-eaters ; 
such, for instance, as the eloquent and benevolent [William 
Wilberforce] ; the late dean of [Carlisle, Dr. Isaac Milner]; 25 
Lord [Erskine]; Mr. , the philosopher; the late under- 
secretary of state [Mr. Addington, brother to the late 
Lord Sidmouth] (who described to me the sensation which 
first drove him to the use of opium, in the very same words 
as the Dean of [Carlisle], viz., "that he felt as though rats 30 
were gnawing and abrading the coats of his stomach") ; 

^ " Not yet recorded,''^ I say : for there is one celebrated man of the 
present day, who, if all be true which is reported of him, has greatly 
exceeded me in quantity. 



154 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE V 

Mr. [Coleridge] ; and many others, hardly less known, 
whom it would be tedious to mention. Now, if one class, 
comparatively so limited, could furnish so many scores 
of cases (and that within the knowledge of one single 

5 inquirer), it was a natural inference that the entire popu- 
lation of England would furnish a proportionable number. 
The soundness of this inference, however, I doubted, until 
some facts became known to me, which satisfied me that 
it was not incorrect. I will mention two: i. Three 

10 respectable London druggists, in widely remote quarters of 
London, from whom I happened lately to be purchasing 
small quantities of opium, assured me, that the number of 
amateur opium-eaters (as I may term them) was, at this 
time, immense ; and that the difficulty of distinguishing 

15 these persons, to whom habit had rendered opium neces- 
sary, from such as were purchasing it with a view to sui- 
cide, occasioned them daily trouble and disputes. This 
evidence respected London only. But, 2. (which will 
possibly surprise the reader more) some years ago, on 

20 passing through Manchester, I was informed by several 
cotton-manufacturers that their work-people were rapidly 
getting into the practice of opium-eating; so much so, 
that on a Saturday afternoon the counters of the druggists 
were strewed with pills of one, two, or three grains, in 

25 preparation for the known demand of the evening. The 
immediate occasion of this practice was the lowness of 
wages, which, at that time, would not allow them to 
indulge in ale or in spirits: and, wages rising, it may be 
thought that this practice would cease: but, as I do not 

30 readily believe that any man, having once tasted the divine 
luxuries of opium, will afterwards descend to the gross 
and mortal enjoyments of alcohol, I take it for granted, 
" That those eat now, who never ate before ; 
And those who always ate, now eat the more." II 



CONFESSIONS OF AN ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER 155 

Indeed the fascinating powers of opium are admitted, 
even by medical writers, who are its greatest enemies : thus, 
for instance, Awsiter, apothecary to Greenwich Hospital, 
in his '' Essay on the Effects of Opium " (published in the 
year 1763), when attempting to explain, why Mead had not 
been sufficiently explicit on the properties, counteragents, 
etc., of this drug, expresses himself in the following myste- 
rious terms (c^wvavra crweToiCT-i) : " perhaps he thought the 
subject of too delicate a nature to be made common ; and 
as many people might then indiscriminately use it, it would 
take from that necessary fear and caution, which should 
prevent their experiencing the extensive power of this 
dr\ig:for there are many properties in it, if universally known, 
that would habituate the use, and make it more in 7'equest with 
us than the Turks themselves : . the result of which knowl- 
edge," he adds, "must prove a general misfortune." In 
the necessity of this conclusion I do not altogether con- 
cur : but upon that point I shall have occasion to speak 
at the close of my confessions, where I shall present the 
reader with the moral of my narrative. 

Preliminary Confessions 

These preliminary confessions, or introductory narrative 
of the youthful adventures which laid the foundation of 
the writer's habit of opium-eating in after-life, it has been 
judged proper to premise, for three several reasons : 

I. As forestalling that question, and giving it a satis- 
factory answer, which else would painfully obtrude itself in 
the course of the Opium Confessions — " How came any 
reasonable being to subject himself to such a yoke of 
misery, voluntarily to incur a captivity so servile, and 
knowingly to fetter himself with such a sevenfold chain ? " 
— a question which, if not somewhere plausibly resolved, 



156 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

could hardly fail, by the indignation which it would be apt 
to raise as against an act of wanton folly, to interfere 
with that degree of sympathy which is necessary in any 
case to an author's purposes. 

5 2. As furnishing a key to some parts of that tremen- 
dous scenery which afterwards peopled the dreams of the 
opium-eater. 

3. As creating some previous interest of a personal sort 
in the confessing subject, apart from the matter of the con- 

10 fessions, which cannot fail to render the confessions them- 
selves more interesting. If a man, ''whose talk is of oxen," 
should become an opium-eater, the probability is, that (if 
he is not too dull to dream at all) — he will dream about 
oxen : whereas, in the case before him, the reader will find 

15 that the opium-eater boasteth himself to be a philosopher ; 
and accordingly, that the phantasmagoria of his dreams 
(waking or sleeping, day-dreams or night-dreams) is suit- 
able to one who in that character, 

" Humani nihil a se alienum putat." 

20 For amongst the conditions which he deems indispen- 
sable to the sustaining of any claim to the title of philoso- 
pher, is not merely the possession of a superb intellect 
in its analytic functions — in which part of the pretension, 
however, England can for some generations show but 

25 few claimants ; at least, he is not aware of any known can- 
didate for this honour, who can be styled emphatically a 
subtle thinker, with the exception of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 
and, in a narrower department of thought, with the recent 
illustrious exception ^ of David Ricardo — but also such a 

1 A third exception might perhaps have been added ; and my reason 
for not adding that exception is chiefly because it was only in his 
juvenile efforts that the writer whom I allude to expressly addressed 
himself to philosophical themes; his riper powers having been all 



CONFESSIONS OF AN ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER 157 

constitution of the moral faculties as shall give him an 
inner eye and power of intuition for the vision and the 
mysteries of our human nature : that constitution of facul- 
ties, in short, which, amongst all the generations of men 
that from the beginning. of time have deployed into life, as 5 
it were, upon this planet, our English poets have possessed 
in the highest degree, and Scottish ^ professors in the 
lowest. 

I have often been asked how I came to be a regular 
opium-eater ; and have suffered, very unjustly, in the 10 
opinion of my acquaintance, from being reputed to have 
brought upon myself all the sufferings which I shall have 

to record, by a long course of indulgence in this practice 
purely for the sake of creating an artificial state of pleasur- 
able excitement. This, however, is a misrepresentation of my 1 5 
case. True it is, that for nearly ten years I did occasion- 
ally take opium for the sake of the exquisite pleasure it gave 
me : but, so long as I took it with this view, I was effect- 
ually protected from all material bad consequences by the 
necessity of interposing long intervals between the several 20 
acts of indulgence, in order to renew the pleasurable sen- 
sations. It was not for the purpose of creating pleasure, 
but of mitigating pain in the severest degree, that I first 

dedicated (on very excusable and very intelligible grounds, under the 
present direction of the popular mind in England) to criticism and the 
Fine Arts. This reason apart, however, I doubt whether he is not 
rather to be considered an acute thinker than a subtle one. It is, 
besides, a great drawback on his mastery over philosophical subjects, 
that he has obviously not had the advantage of a regular scholastic 
education : he has not read Plato in his youth (which most likely was 
only his misfortune); but neither has he read Kant in his manhood 
(which is his fault). 

I I disdain any allusion to existing professors, of whom indeed I 
know only one. 



158 SELECTIONS FROM BE QUINCE Y 

began to use opium as an article of daily diet. In the 
twenty-eighth year of my age, a most painful affection of 
the stomach, which I had first experienced about ten years 
before, attacked me in great strength. This affection had 
5 originally been caused by extremities of hunger, suffered 
in my boyish days. During the season of. hope and 
redundant happiness which succeeded (that is, from eight- 
een to twenty-four) it had slumbered : for the three fol- 
lowing years it had revived at intervals : and now, under 

10 unfavourable circumstances, from depression of spirits, 
it attacked me with a violence that yielded to no reme- 
dies but opium. As the youthful sufferings which first 
produced this derangement of the stomach, were interest- 
ing in themselves, and in the circumstances that attended 

15 them, I shall here briefly retrace them. 

My father died when I was about seven years old, and 
left me to the care of four guardians. I was sent to 
various schools, great and small ; and was very early dis- 
tinguished for my classical attainments, especially for my 

20 knowledge of Greek. At thirteen I wrote Greek with ease ; 
and at fifteen my command of that language was so great 
that I not only composed Greek verses in lyric metres, but 
could converse in Greek fluently, and without embarrass- 
ment — an accomplishment which I have not since met 

25 with in any scholar of my times, and .which, in my case, 
was owing to the practice of daily reading off the news- 
papers into the best Greek I could furnish extempore: for the 
necessity of ransacking my memory and invention for all 
sorts and combinations of periphrastic expressions, as 

30 equivalents for modern ideas, images, relations of things, 

etc., gave me a compass of diction which would never 

have been called out by a dull translation of moral essays, 

V etc. "That boy," said one of my masters, pointing the 

\ attention of a stranger to me, " that boy could harangue an 



CONFESSIOA'S OF AN ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER 159 

Athenian mob better than you or I could address an / 
English one." He who honoured me with this eulogy, was 
a scholar, " and a ripe and good one " : and, of all my 
tutors, was the only one whom I loved or reverenced. 
Unfortunately for me (and, as I afterwards learned, to this 5 
worthy man's great indignation), I was transferred to the 
care, first of a blockhead, who was in a perpetual panic 
lest I should expose his ignorance ; and finally, to that of 
a respectable scholar, at the head of a great school on an 
ancient foundation. This man had been appointed to his 10 
situation by [Brasenose] College, Oxford ; and was a sound, 
well-built scholar, but, like most men whom I have known 
from that college, coarse, clumsy, and inelegant. A miser- 
able contrast he presented, in my eyes, to the Etonian 
brilliancy of my favourite master: and, besides, he could 15 
not disguise from my hourly notice the poverty and meagre- 
ness of his understanding. It is a bad thing for a boy to 
be, and to know himself, far beyond his tutors, whether in 
knowledge or in power of mind. This was the case, so far 
as regarded knowledge at least, not with myself only : for 20 
the two boys, who jointly with myself composed the first 
form, were better Grecians than the head-master, though 
not more elegant scholars, nor at all more accustomed to 
sacrifice to the graces. When I first entered, I remember 
that we read Sophocles ; and it was a constant matter of 25 
triumph to us, the learned triumvirate of the first form, to 
see our ' Archididascalus,' as he loved to be called, conning 
our lesson before we went up, and laying a regular train, 
with lexicon and grammar, for blowing up and blasting, as 
it were, any difficulties he found in the choruses ; whilst we 30 
never condescended to open our books until the moment of 
going up, and were generally employed in writing epigrams 
upon his wig, or some such important matter. My two 
class-fellows were poor, and dependent for their future 



i6o SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

prospects at the university, on the recommendation of the 
head-master : but I, who had a small patrimonial property, 
the income of which was sufficient to support me at college, 
wished to be sent thither immediately. I made earnest 

5 representations on the subject to my guardians, but all 
to no purpose. One, who was more reasonable, and had 
more knowledge of the world than the rest, lived at a dis- 
tance : two of the other three resigned all their authority 
into the hands of the fourth ; and this fourth, with whom I 

10 had to negotiate, was a worthy man in his way, but 
haughty, obstinate, and intolerant of all opposition to his 
will. After a certain number of letters and personal inter- 
views, I found that I had nothing to hope for, not even a 
compromise of the matter, from my guardian : unconditional 

15 submission was what he demanded: and I prepared my- 
self, therefore, for other measures. Summer was now com- 
ing on with hasty steps, and my seventeenth birthday was 
fast approaching; after which day I had sworn within 
myself that I would no longer be numbered amongst 

20 schoolboys. Money being what I chiefly wanted, I wrote 
to a woman of high rank, who, though young herself, had 
known, me from a child, and had latterly treated me with 
great distinction, requesting that she would * lend ' me five 
guineas. For upwards of a week no answer came ; and I 

25 was beginning to despond, when, at length, a servant put 
into my hands a double letter, with a coronet on the seal. 
The letter was kind and obliging : the fair writer was on 
the sea-coast, and in that way the delay had arisen : she 
enclosed double of what I had asked, and good-naturedly 

30 hinted that if I should ne2.>er repay her it would not abso- 
lutely ruin her. Now then, I was prepared for my scheme : 
ten guineas, added to about two which I had remaining 
from my pocket money, seemed to me sufficient for an 
indefinite length of time : and at that happy age, if no 



CONFESSIONS OF AN ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER i6i 

definite boundary can be assigned to one's power, the spirit 
of hope and pleasure makes it virtually infinite. 

It is a just remark of Dr. Johnson's, and, what cannot 
often be said of his remarks, it is a very feeling one, that 
we never do anything consciously for the last time — of 5 
things, that is, which we have long been in the habit of 
doing — without sadness of heart. This truth I felt deeply, 
when I came to leave [Manchester], a place which I did 
not love, and.. where I had not been happy. On the even- 
ing before I left [Manchester] for ever, I grieved when the 10 
ancient and lofty school-room resounded with the evening 
service, performed for the last time in my hearing ; and at 
night, when the muster-roll of names was called over, and 
mine, as usual, was called first, I stepped forward, and, 
passing the head-master, who was standing by, I bowed 15, 
to him, and looked earnestly in his face, thinking to 
myself, "He is old and infirm, and in this world I shall 
not see him again." I was right : I never did see him 
again, nor ever shall. He looked at me complacently, 
smiled good-naturedly, returned my salutation, or rather 20 
my valediction, and we parted, though he knew it not, 
for ever. I could not reverence him intellectually : but 
he had been uniformly kind to me, and had allowed me 
many indulgences : and I grieved at the thought of the 
mortification I should inflict upon him. 25 

The morning came which was to launch me into the 
world, and from which my whole succeeding life has, in 
many important points, taken its colouring. I lodged in 
the head-master's house, and had been allowed, from my 
first entrance, the indulgence of a private room, which I 30 
used both as a sleeping-room and as a study. At half after 
three I rose, and gazed with deep emotion at the ancient 
towers of [the Collegiate Church], "drest in earliest light," 
and beginning to crimson with the radiant lustre of a 



1 62 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

cloudless July morning. I was firm and immovable in my 
purpose : but yet agitated by anticipation of uncertain dan- 
ger and troubles ; and, if I could have foreseen the hurri- 
cane and perfect hail-storm of affliction which soon fell 
5 upon me, well might I have been agitated. To this agita- 
tion the deep peace of the morning presented an affecting 
contrast, and in some degree a medicine. The silence was 
more profound than that of midnight : and to me the 
j silence of a summer morning is more toucjiing than all 
lo other silence, because, the light being broad and strong, as 
! that of noon-day at other seasons of the year, it seems to 
differ from perfect day chiefly because man is not yet 
abroad ; and thus the peace of nature, and of the innocent 
^ creatures of God, seems to be secure and deep, only so long 
15 as the presence of man, and his restless and unquiet spirit, 
are not there to trouble its sanctity. I dressed myself, 
took my hat and gloves, and lingered a little in the room. 
For the last year and a half this room had been my " pen- 
sive citadel " : here I had read and studied through all the 
20 hours of night : and, though true it was that for the latter 
part of this time I, who was framed for love and gentle 
affections, had lost my gaiety and happiness, during the 
strife and fever of contention with my guardian ; yet, on 
the other hand, as a boy so passionately fond of books, and 
25 dedicated to intellectual pursuits, I could not fail to have 
enjoyed many happy hours in the midst of general dejec- 
tion. I wept as I looked round on the chair, hearth, 
writing-table, and other familiar objects, knowing too cer- 
tainly that I looked upon them for the last time. Whilst 
30 I write this, it is eighteen years ago : and yet, at this 
moment, I see distinctly as if it were yesterday the linea- 
ments and expression of the object on which I fixed my 

parting gaze : it was a picture of the lovely , which 

hung over the mantle-piece ; the eyes and mouth of which 



CONFESSIONS OF AN ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER 163 

were so beautiful, and the whole countenance so radiant 
with benignity and divine tranquillity, that I had a thou- 
sand times laid down my pen or my book, to gather conso- 
lation from it, as a devotee from his patron saint. Whilst I 
was yet gazing upon it, the deep tones of [Manchester] 
clock proclaimed that it was four o'clock. I went up to 
the picture, kissed it, and then gently walked out, and 
closed the door for ever ! 



So blended and intertwisted in this life are occasions 
of laughter and of tears, that I cannot yet recall, without 10 
smiling, an incident which occurred at that time, and 
which had nearly put a stop to the immediate execution of 
my plan. I had a trunk of immense weight ; for, besides 
my clothes, it contained nearly all my library. The diffi- 
culty was to get this removed to a carrier's : my room was 15 
at an aerial elevation in the house, and (what was worse) 
the staircase, which communicated with this angle of the 
building, was accessible only by a gallery, which passed 
the head-master's chamber-door. I was a favourite with all 
the servants ; and, knowing that any of them would screen 20 
me, and act confidentially, I communicated my embarrass- 
ment to a groom of the head-master's. The groom swore 
he would do anything I wished ; and, when the time arrived, 
went up stairs to bring the trunk down. This I feared was 
beyond the strength of any one man : however, the groom 25 
was a man — 

" Of Atlantean shoulders, fit to bear 
The weight of mightiest monarchies " ; 

and had a back as spacious as Salisbury plain. Accord- 
ingly he persisted in bringing down the trunk alone, whilst 30 
I stood waiting at the foot of the last flight, in anxiety for 
the event. For some time I heard him descending with 



164 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

slow and firm steps: but, unfortunately, from his trepidation 
as he drew near the dangerous quarter, within a few steps 
of the gallery, his foot slipped ; and the mighty burden, 
falling from his shoulders, gained such increase of impetus 
5 at each step of the descent, that, on reaching the bottom, 
it tumbled, or rather leaped, right across, with the noise 
of twenty devils, against the very bedroom door of the 
Archididascalus. My first thought was, that all was lost ; 
and that my only chance for executing a retreat was to sac- 

10 rifice my baggage. However, on reflection, I determined 
to abide the issue. The groom was in the utmost alarm, 
both on his own account and on mine: but, in spite of 
this, so irresistibly had the sense of the ludicrous, in this 
unhappy contretemps, taken possession of his fancy, that he 

15 sang out a long, loud, and canorous peal of laughter, that 
might have wakened the Seven Sleepers. At the sound of 
this resonant merriment, within the very ears of insulted 
authority, I could not myself forbear joining in it: subdued 
to this, not so much by the unhappy ctou?-de?'ie of the trunk, 

20 as by the effect it had upon the groom. We both expected, 
as a matter of course, that Dr. [Lawson] would sally out 
of his room : for, in general, .if but a mouse stirred, he 
sprang out like a mastiff from his kennel. Strange to say, 
however, on this occasion, when the noise of laughter had 

25 ceased, no sound, or rustling even, was to be heard in the 
bedroom. Dr. [Lawson] had a painful complaint, which, 
sometimes keeping him awake, made his sleep, perhaps, 
when it did come, the deeper. Gathering courage from the 
silence, the groom hoisted his burden again, and accom- 

30 plished the remainder of his descent without accident. 
I waited until I saw the trunk placed on a wheel-barrow, 
and on its road to the carrier's: then, "with Providence 
my guide," I set off on foot, — carrying a small parcel, with 
some articles of dress, under my arm ; a favourite English 



CONFESSIONS OF AN ENGLISH OPIUM-EA TER 165 

poet in one pocket; and a small i2ino volume, containing 
about nine plays of Euripides, in the other. 

It had been my intention originally to proceed to West- 
moreland, both from the love I bore to that country, and 
on other personal accounts. Accident, however, gave a 5 
different direction to my wanderings, and I bent my steps 
towards North Wales. 

After wandering about for some time in Denbighshire, 
Merionethshire, and Caernarvonshire, I took lodgings in a 
small neat house in B[angor]. Here I might have staid 10 
with great comfort for many weeks ; for provisions were 
cheap at B[angor], from the scarcity of other markets for 
the surplus produce of a wide agricultural district. An acci- 
dent, however, in which, perhaps, no offence was designed, 
drove me out to wander again. I know not whether my 15 
reader may have remarked, but / have often remarked, that 
the proudest class of people in England, or, at any rate, 
the class whose pride is most apparent, are the families of 
bishops. Noblemen and their children carry about with 
them, in their very titles, a sufficient notification of their 20 
rank. Nay, their very names, and this applies also to the 
children of many untitled houses, are often to the English 
ear adequate exponents of high birth or descent. Sackville, 
Manners, Fitzroy, Paulet, Cavendish, and scores of others, 
tell their own tale. Such persons, therefore, find everywhere 25 
a due sense of their claims already established, except among 
those who are ignorant of the world by virtue of their own 
obscurity : " Not to know them^ argues one's self unknown." 
Their manners take a suitable tone and colouring ; and, for 
once that they find it necessary to impress a sense of their 30 
consequence upon others, they meet with a thousand occa- 
sions for moderating and tempering this sense by acts of 
courteous condescension. With the families of bishops it 
is otherwise : with them it is all uphill work to make known 



1 66 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

their pretensions : for the proportion of the episcopal bench 
taken from noble families is not at any time very large ; and 
the succession to these dignities is so rapid that the public 
ear seldom has time to become familiar with them, unless 

5 where they are connected with some literary reputation. 
Hence it is, that the children of 'bishops carry about with 
them an austere and repulsive air, indicative of claims not 
generally acknowledged, a sort of noli me tangere manner, 
nervously apprehensive of too familiar approach, and shrink- 

10 ing with the sensitiveness of a gouty man, from all contact 
with the oi TToXAot. Doubtless, a powerful understanding, 
or unusual goodness of nature, will preserve a man from 
such weakness : but, in general, the truth of my represen- 
tation will be acknowledged : pride, if not of deeper root 

1 5 in such families, appears, at least, more upon the surface of 
their manners. This spirit of manners naturally communi- 
cates itself to their domestics and other dependents. Now, 
my landlady had been a lady's maid, or a nurse, in the 
family of the Bishop of [Bangor] ; and had but lately 

20 married away and " settled " (as such people express it) for 
life. In a little town like B[angor] merely to have lived 
in the bishop's family conferred some distinction : and my 
good landlady had rather more than her share of the pride 
I have noticed on that score. What ''my lord" said, and 

25 what " my lord " did, how useful he was in parliament, and 
how indispensable at Oxford, formed the daily burden of 
her talk. All this I bore very well : for I was too good- 
natured to laugh in anybody's face, and I could make an 
ample allowance for the garrulity of an old servant. Of 

30 necessity, however, I must have appeared in her eyes very 
inadequately impressed with the bishop's importance : and, 
perhaps, to punish me for my indifference, or possibly by 
accident, she one day repeated to me a conversation in 
which I was indirectly a party concerned. She had been 



CONFESSIONS OF AN ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER 167 

to the palace to pay her respects to the family ; and, dinner 
being over, was summoned into the dining-room. In giving 
an account of her household economy, she happened to 
mention that she had let her apartments. Thereupon the 
good bishop (it seemed) had taken occasion to caution her 5 
as to her selection of inmates: "for," said he, "you must 
recollect, Betty, that this place is in the high road to the 
Head ; so that multitudes of Irish swindlers, running away 
from their debts into England — and of English swindlers, 
running away from their debts to the Isle of Man, are likely 10 
to take this place in their route." This advice was cer- 
tainly not without reasonable grounds : but rather fitted 
to be stored up for Mrs. Betty's private meditations, than 
specially reported to me. What followed, however, was 
somewhat worse: — "Oh, my lord," answered my landlady 15 
(according to her own representation of the matter), " I 
really don't think this young gentleman is a swindler ; 

because- :" "You don't tki?ik me a swindler?" said I, 

interrupting her, in a tumult of indignation : " for the future 
I shall spare you the trouble of thinking about it." And 20 
without delay I prepared for my departure. Some conces- 
sions the good woman seemed disposed to make : but a 
harsh and contemptuous expression which I fear that I 
applied to the learned dignitary himself, roused her indig- 
nation in turn : and reconciliation then became impossible. 25 
I was, indeed, greatly irritated at the bishop's having sug- 
gested any grounds of suspicion, however remotely, against 
a person whom he had never seen : and I thought of letting 
him know my mind in Greek : which, at the same time that 
it would furnish some presumption that I was no swindler, 30 
would also, I hoped, compel the bishop to reply in the same 
language ; in which case, I doubted not to make it appear, 
that if I was not so rich as his lordship, I was a better 
Grecian. Calmer thoughts, however, drove this boyish 



1 68 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

design out of my mind : for I considered that the bishop 
was in the right to counsel an old servant ; that he could 
not have designed that his advice should be reported to 
me ; and that the same coarseness of mind which had led 
5 Mrs. Betty to repeat the advice at all might have coloured 
it in a way more agreeable to her own style of thinking 
than to the actual expressions of the worthy bishop. 

I left the lodgings the same hour ; and this turned out a 
very unfortunate occurrence for me : because, living hence- 

10 forward at inns, I was drained of my money very rapidly. 
In a fortnight I was reduced to short allowance ; that is, I 
could allow myself only one meal a day. From the keen 
appetite produced by constant exercise and mountain air 
acting on a youthful stomach, I soon began to suffer 

15 greatly on this slender regimen ; for the single meal which 
I could venture to order was coffee or tea. Even this, 
however, was at length withdrawn : and afterwards, so 
long as I remained in Wales, I subsisted either on black- 
berries, hips, haws, etc., or on the casual hospitalities 

20 which I now and then received, in return for such little ser- 
vices as I had an opportunity of rendering. Sometimes I 
wrote letters of business for cottagers, who happened to 
have relatives in Liverpool, or in London : more often I 
wrote love-letters to their sweethearts for young women 

25 who had lived as servants in Shrewsbury, or other towns 
on the English border. On all such occasions I gave great 
satisfaction to my humble friends, and was generally 
treated with hospitality: and once, in particular, near the 
village of Llan-y-styndw (or some such name), in a seques- 

30 tered part of Merionethshire, I was entertained for upwards 
of three days by a family of young people, with an affec- 
tionate and fraternal kindness that left an impression upon 
my heart not yet impaired. The family consisted, at that 
time, of four sisters and three brothers, all grown up, and 



CONFESSIONS OF AN ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER 169 

all remarkable for elegance and delicacy of manners. So 
much beauty, and so much native good-breeding and 
refinement, I do not remember to have seen before or 
since in any cottage, except once or twice in Westmoreland 
and Devonshire. They spoke English : an accomplish- 5 
ment not often met with in so many members of one 
family, especially in villages remote from the high road. 
Here I wrote, on my first introduction, a letter about prize- 
money, for one of the brothers, who had served on board 
an English man-of-war ; and more privately, two love- 10 
letters for two of the sisters. They were both interesting 
looking girls, and one of uncommon loveliness. In the 
midst of their confusion and blushes, whilst dictating, or 
rather giving me general instructions, it did not require 
any great penetration to discover that what they wished 15 
was, that their letters should be as kind as was consistent 
with proper maidenly pride. I contrived so to temper my 
expressions as to reconcile the gratification of both feel- 
ings : and they were as much pleased with the way in 
which I had expressed their thoughts, as, in their sim- 20 
plicity, they were astonished at my having so readily dis- 
covered them. The reception one meets with from the 
women of a family generally determines the tenour of one's 
whole entertainment. In this case I had discharged my 
confidential duties as secretary so much to the general 25 
satisfaction, perhaps also amusing them with my conversa- 
tion, that I was pressed to stay with a cordiality which I 
had little inclination to resist. I slept with the brothers, 
the only unoccupied bed standing in the apartment of the 
young women: but in all other points, they treated me 30 
with a respect not usually paid to purses as light as mine; 
as if my scholarship were sufficient evidence that I was of 
"gentle blood." Thus I lived with them for three days, 
and a greater part of a fourth : and from the undiminished 



lyo SELECTIONS EROM DE QUINCE Y 

kindness which they continued to show me, I believe I 
might have staid with them up to this time, if their power 
had corresponded with their wishes. On the last morning, 
however, I perceived upon their countenances, as they sat 
5 at breakfast, the expression of some unpleasant communi- 
cation which was at hand; and soon after one of the 
brothers explained to me, that their parents had gone, the 
day before my arrival, to an annual meeting of Methodists, 
held at Caernarvon, and were that day expected to return ; 

lo " and if they should not be so civil as they ought to be," 
he begged, on the part of all the young people, that I 
would not take it amiss. The parents returned, with churl- 
ish faces, and '•'■ Dym Sassenach^^ {iio English), in answer to 
all my addresses. I saw how matters stood ; and so, tak- 

15 ing an affectionate leave of my kind and interesting young 
hosts, I went my way. For, though they spoke warmly to 
their parents in my behalf, and often excused the manner 
of the old people, by saying that it was "only their way," 
yet I easily understood that my talent for writing love- 

20 letters would do as little to recommend me with two grave 
sexagenarian Welsh Methodists, as my Greek Sapphics or 
Alcaics : and what had been hospitality, when offered to 
me with the gracious courtesy of my young friends, would 
become charity, when connected with the harsh demeanour 

25 of these old people. Certainly, Mr. Shelley is right in his 

notions about old age: unless powerfully counteracted by 

all sorts of opposite agencies, it is a miserable corrupter 

and blighter to the genial charities of the human heart. 

Soon after this, I contrived, by means which I must 

30 omit for want of room, to transfer myself to London. And 
now began the latter and fiercer stage of my long suffer- 
ings ; without using a disproportionate expression, I might 
say, of my agony. For I now suffered, for upwards of six- 
teen weeks, the physical anguish of hunger in various degrees 



CONFESSIONS OF AN ENGLISH OPIUM-EA TER 1 7 i 

of intensity ; but as bitter, perhaps, as ever any human 
being can have suffered who has survived it. I would not 
needlessly harass my reader's feelings by a detail of all 
that I endured : for extremities such as these, under any 
circumstances of heaviest misconduct or guilt, cannot be 5 
contemplated even in description without a rueful pity that 
is painful to the natural goodness of the human heart. Let 
it suffice, at least on this occasion, to say that a few frag- 
ments of bread from the breakfast-table of one individual, 
who supposed me to be ill, but did not know of my being 10 
in utter want, and these at uncertain intervals, constituted 
my whole support. During the former part of my suffer- 
ings, that is, generally in Wales, and always for the first 
two months in London, I was houseless, and very seldom 
slept under a roof. To this constant exposure to the open 15 
air I ascribe it mainly that I did not sink under my tor- 
ments. Latterly, however, when colder and more inclem- 
ent weather came on, and when, from the length of my 
sufferings, I had begun to sink into a more languishing 
condition, it was, no doubt, fortunate for me that the same 20 
person to whose breakfast-table I had access allowed me to 
sleep in a large unoccupied house, of which he was tenant. 
Unoccupied, I call it, for there was no household or estab- 
lishment in it ; nor any furniture indeed, except a table and 
a few chairs. But I found, on taking possession of my 25 
new quarters, that the house already contained one single 
inmate, a poor friendless child, apparently ten years old ; 
but she seemed hunger-bitten ; and sufferings of that sort 
often make children look older than they are. From this 
forlorn child I learned that she had slept and lived there 30 
alone for some time before I came : and great joy the poor 
creature expressed, when she found that I was, in future, 
to be her companion through the hours of darkness. The 
house was large ; and, from the want of furniture, the noise 



172 SELECTIONS FROM BE QUINCE Y 

of the rats made a prodigious echoing on the spacious stair- 
case and hall ; and, amidst the real fleshly ills of cold, and, 
I fear, hunger, the forsaken child had found leisure to suffer 
still more, it appeared, from the self-created one of ghosts. 

5 I promised her protection against all ghosts whatsoever : 
but, alas ! I could offer her no other assistance. We lay 
upon the floor, with a bundle of cursed law papers for a 
pillow : but with no other covering than a sort of large 
horseman's cloak : afterwards, however, we discovered, in 

10 a garret, an old sofa-cover, a small piece of rug, and some 
fragments of other articles, which added a little to our 
warmth. The poor child crept close to me for warmth, 
and for security against her ghostly enemies. When I was 
not more than usually ill, I took her into my arms, so that, 

15 in general, she was tolerably warm, and often slept when I 
could not : for, during the last two months of my sufferings, 
I slept much in the day-time, and was apt to fall into tran- 
sient dozings at all hours. But my sleep distressed me more 
than my watching : for, besides the tumultuousness of my 

20 dreams, which were only not so awful as those which I shall 
have to describe hereafter as produced by opium, my sleep 
was never more than what is called dog-sleep; so that I 
could hear myself moaning, and was often, as it seemed to 
me, wakened suddenly by my own voice ; and, about this 

25 time, a hideous sensation began to haunt me as soon as I 
fell into a slumber, which has since returned upon me at 
different periods of my life, viz., a sort of twitching, I know 
not where, but apparently about the region of the stomach, 
which compelled me violently to throw out my feet for the 

30 sake of relieving it. This sensation coming on as soon 
as I began to sleep, and the effort to relieve it constantly 
awaking me, at length I slept only from exhaustion ; and 
from increasing weakness, as I said before, I was constantly 
falling asleep, and constantly awaking. Meantime, the 



CONFESSIONS OF AN ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER 173 

master of the house sometimes came in upon us suddenly, 
and very early, sometimes not till ten o'clock, sometimes 
not at all. He was in constant fear of bailiffs : improving 
on the plan of Cromwell, every night he slept in a different 
quarter of London ; and I observed that he never failed to 5 
examine through a private window the appearance of those 
who knocked at the door, before he would allow it to be 
opened. He breakfasted alone : indeed, his tea equipage 
would hardly have admitted of his hazarding an invitation 
to a second person — any more than the quantity of esculent 10 
materiel, which, for the most part, was little more than a 
roll, or a few biscuits, which he had bought on his road 
from the place where he had slept. Or, if he had asked a 
party, as I once learnedly and facetiously observed to him 
— the several members of it must have stood \n the relation 15 
to each other (not sat in any relation whatever) of succes- 
sion, as the metaphysicians have it, and not of co-existence ; 
in the relation of the parts of time, and not of the parts of 
space. During his breakfast, I generally contrived a reason 
for lounging in ; and, with an air of as much indifference 20 
as I could assume, took up such fragments as he had left — 
sometimes, indeed, there were none at all. In doing this, 
I committed no robbery except upon the man himself, who 
was thus obliged, I believe, now and then to send out at 
noon for an extra biscuit ; for, as to the poor child, j"//^ was 25 
never admitted into his study, if I may give that name to 
his chief depository of parchments, law writings, etc. ; that 
room was to her the Blue-beard room of the house, being 
regularly locked on his departure to dinner, about six 
o'clock, which usually was his final departure for the night. 3° 
Whether this child were an illegitimate daughter of Mr. 
[Brunell], or only a servant, I could not ascertain ; she did 
not herself know ; but certainly she was treated altogether 
as a menial servant. No sooner did Mr. [Brunell] make 



174 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCEY 

his appearance, than she went below stairs, brushed his 
shoes, coat, etc. ; and, except when she was summoned to 
run an errand, she never emerged from the dismal Tartarus 
of the kitchens, etc., to the upper air, until my welcome 

5 knock at night called up her little trembling footsteps to 
the front door. Of her life during the day-time, however, 
I knew little but what I gathered from her own account at 
night ; for, as soon as the hours of business commenced, I 
saw that my absence would be acceptable ; and, in general, 

10 therefore, I went off, and sat in the parks, or elsewhere, 
until night-fall. 

But who, and what, meantime, was the master of the 
house himself ? Reader, he was one of those anomalous 
practitioners in lower departments of the law, who — 

15 what shall I say? — who, on prudential reasons, or from 
necessity, deny themselves all indulgence in the luxury of 
too delicate a conscience : (a periphrasis which might be 
abridged considerably, but that I leave to the reader's 
taste:) in many walks of life, a conscience is a more expen- 

20 sive encumbrance, than a wife or a carriage ; and just as 
people talk of "laying down" their carriages, so I suppose 
my friend, Mr. [Brunell], had "laid down" his conscience 
for a time ; meaning, doubtless, to resume it as soon as he 
could afford it. The inner economy of such a man's daily 

25 life would present a most strange picture, if I could allow 
myself to amuse the reader at his expense. Even with my 
limited opportunities for observing what went on, I saw 
many scenes of London intrigues, and complex chicanery 
"cycle and epicycle, orb in orb," at which I sometimes 

30 smile to this day — and at which I smiled then, in spite of 
my misery. My situation, however, at that time, gave me 
little experience, in my own person, of any qualities in Mr. 
[Brunell]'s character but such as did him honour; and of 
his whole strange composition I must forget everything 



CONFESSIONS OF AN ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER 175 

but that towards me he was obliging, and to the extent of 
his power, generous. 

That power was not, indeed, very extensive ; however, in 
common with the rats, I sat rent free ; and, as Dr. Johnson 
has recorded, that he never but once in his life had as much 5 
wall-fruit as he could eat, so let me be grateful, that on that 
single occasion I had as large a choice of apartments in a 
London mansion as I could possibly desire. Except the 
Blue-beard room, which the poor child believed to be 
haunted, all others, from the attics to the cellars, were at 10 
our service ; " the world was all before us " ; and we pitched 
our tent for the night in any spot we chose. This house I 
have already described as a large one ; it stands in a con- 
spicuous situation, and in a well-known part of London. 
Many of my readers will have passed it, I doubt not, within 15 
a few hours of reading this. For myself, I never fail to visit 
it when business draws me to London ; about ten o'clock, 
this very night, August 15, 182 1, being my birthday, — I 
turned aside from my evening walk, down Oxford Street, 
purposely to take a glance at it : it is now occupied by a 20 
respectable family ; and, by the lights in the front drawing- 
room, I observed a domestic party, assembled perhaps at 
tea, and apparently cheerful and gay. Marvellous contrast 
in my eyes to the darkness — cold — silence — and deso- 
lation of that same house eighteen years ago, when its 25 
nightly occupants were one famishing scholar, and a 
neglected child. — Her, by the bye, in after years, I vainly 
endeavoured to trace. Apart from her situation, she was 
not what would be called an interesting child : she was 
neither pretty, nor quick in understanding, nor remarkably 30 
pleasing in manners. But, thank God ! even in those years 
I needed not the embellishments of novel accessaries to con- 
ciliate my affections ; plain human nature, in its humblest 
and most homely apparel, was enough for me : and I loved 



176 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

the child because she was my partner in wretchedness. If 
she is now living, she is probably a mother, with children 
of her own ; but, as I have said, I could never trace her. 
This I regret, but another person there was at that time, 

5 whom I have since sought to trace with far deeper earnest- 
ness, and with far deeper sorrow at my failure. This per- 
son was a young woman, and one of that unhappy class who 
subsist upon the wages of prostitution. I feel no shame, 
nor have any reason to feel it, in avowing, that I was then 

10 on familiar and friendly terms with many women in that 
unfortunate condition. The reader needs neither smile at 
this avowal, nor frown. For, not to remind my classical 
readers of the old Latin proverb — ^^ Sine Cerere,^^ etc., it 
may well be supposed that in the existing state of my purse 

15 my connexion with such women could not have been an 
impure one. But the truth is, that at no time of my life 
have I been a person to hold myself polluted by the touch 
or approach of any creature that wore a human shape : on 
the contrary, from my very earliest youth it has been my 

20 pride to converse familiarly, 7nore Socratico, with all human 
beings, man, woman, and child, that chance might fling in 
my way : a practice which is friendly to the knowledge of 
human nature, to good feelings, and to that frankness of 
address which becomes a man who would be thought a phil- 

25 osopher. For a philosopher should not see with the eyes of 
the poor limitary creature, calling himself a man of the world, 
and filled with narrow and self-regarding prejudices of birth 
and education, but should look upon himself as a catholic 
creature, and as standing in an equal relation to high and 

30 low — to educated and uneducated, to the guilty and the 
innocent. Being myself at that time of necessity a peripa- 
tetic, or a walker of the streets, I naturally fell in more 
frequently with those female peripatetics who are technic- 
ally called street-walkers. Many of these women had 



CONFESS/OATS OF AN ENGLISH OPIUM-EA TER 



n 



occasionally taken my part against watchmen who wished to 
drive me off the steps of houses where I was sitting. But 
one amongst them, the one on whose account I have at all 
introduced this subject — yet no ! let me not class thee, oh 

noble-minded Ann , with that order of women ; let 5 

me find, if it be possible, some gentler name to designate 
the condition of her to whose bounty and compassion, 
ministering to my necessities when all the world had for- 
saken me, I owe it that I am at this time alive. — For many 
weeks I had walked at nights with this poor friendless girl 10 
up and down Oxford Street, or had rested with her on steps 
and under the shelter of porticoes. She could not be so 
old as myself : she told me, indeed, that she had not com- 
pleted her sixteenth year. By such questions as my interest 
about her prompted, I had gradually drawn forth her simple 15 
history. Hers was a case of ordinary occurrence (as I have 
since had reason to think), and one in which, if London 
beneficence had better adapted its arrangements to meet it, 
the power of the law might oftener be interposed to pro- 
tect, and to avenge. But the stream of London charity 20 
flows in a channel which, though deep and mighty, is yet 
noiseless and under-ground ; not obvious or readily access- 
ible to poor houseless wanderers : and it cannot be denied 
that the outside air and frame-work of London society is 
harsh, cruel, and repulsive. In any case, however, I saw 25 
that part of her injuries might easily have been redressed ; 
and I urged her often and earnestly- to lay her complaint 
before a magistrate : friendless as she was, I assured her 
that she would meet with immediate attention ; and that 
English justice, which was no respecter of persons, would 30 
speedily and amply avenge her on the brutal ruffian who 
had plundered her little property. She promised me 
often that she would ; but she delayed taking the steps I 
pointed out from time to time : for she was timid and 



17S SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCEY 

dejected to a degree which showed how deeply sorrow 
had taken hold of her young heart : and perhaps she 
thought justly that the most upright judge, and the most 
righteous tribunals, could do nothing to repair her heaviest 
5 wrongs. Something, however, would perhaps have been 
done : for it had been settled between us at length, but 
unhappily on the'very last time but one that I was ever to 
see her, that in a day or two we should go together before 
a magistrate, and that I should speak on her behalf. This 

10 little service it was destined, however, that I should never 
realise. Meantime, that which she rendered to me, and 
which was greater than I could ever have repaid her, 
was this : — One night, when we w^re pacing slowly along 
Oxford Street, and after a day when I had felt more than 

15 usually ill and faint, I requested her to turn off with me 
into Soho Square: thither we went; and we sat down on 
the steps of a house, which, to this hour, I never pass 
without a pang of grief, and an inner act of homage to the 
spirit of that unhappy girl, in memory of the noble action 

20 which she there performed. Suddenly, as we sat, I grew 
much worse : I had been leaning my head against her 
bosom ; and all at once I sank from her arms and fell back- 
wards on the step. From the sensations I then had, I felt 
an inner conviction of the liveliest kind that without some 

25 powerful and reviving stimulus, I should either have died 
on the spot — or should at least have sunk to a point of 
exhaustion from which all re-ascent under my friendless 
circumstances would soon have become hopeless. Then it 
was, at this crisis of my fate, that my poor orphan com- 

30 panion — who had herself met with little but injuries in 
this world — stretched out a saving hand to me. Uttering 
a cry of terror, but without a moment's delay, she ran off 
into Oxford Street, and in less time than could be imagined, 
returned to me with a glass of port wine and spices, that 



CONFESSIONS OF AN ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER ijg 

acted upon my empty stomach (which at that time would 
have rejected all solid food) with an instantaneous power 
of restoration : and for this glass the generous girl without 
a murmur paid out of her own humble purse at a time — be 
it remembered ! — when she had scarcely wherewithal to 5 
purchase the bare necessaries of life, and when she could 
have no reason to expect that I should ever be able to 

reimburse her. Oh! youthful benefactress! how often 

in succeeding years, standing in solitary places, and think- 
ing of thee with grief of heart and perfect love, how often 10 
have I wished that, as in ancient times the curse of a father 
was believed to have a supernatural power, and to pursue 
its object with a fatal necessity of self-fulfilment, — even 
so the benediction of a heart oppressed with gratitude 
might have a like prerogative; might have power given it 15 
from above to chase — to haunt — to way-lay — to overtake 

— to pursue thee into the central darkness of a London 
brothel, or, if it were possible, into the darkness of the 
grave — there to awaken thee with an authentic message 

of peace and forgiveness, and of final reconciliation ! 20 

I do not often weep : for not only do my thoughts on 
subjects connected with the chief interests of man daily, 
nay hourly, descend a thousand fathoms "too deep for 
tears" ; not only does the sternness of my habits of thought 
present an antagonism to the feelings which prompt tears 25 

— wanting of necessity to those who, being protected 
usually by their levity from any tendency to meditative 
sorrow, would by that same levity be made incapable of 
resisting it on any casual access of such feelings : — but 
also, I believe that all minds which have contemplated 30 
such objects as deeply as I have done, must, for their own 
protection from utter despondency, have early encouraged 
and cherished some tranquillising belief as to the future 
balances and the hieroglyphic meanings of human sufferings. 



i8o SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

On these accounts, I am cheerful to this hour ; and, 
as I have said, I do not often weep. Yet some feelings, 
though not deeper or more passionate, are more tender 
than others ; and often, when I walk at this time in Oxford 
5 Street by dreamy lamp-light, and hear those airs played on 
a barrel-organ which years ago solaced me and my dear 
companion, as I must always call her, I shed tears, and 
muse with myself at the mysterious dispensation which so 
suddenly and so critically separated us for ever. How it 

10 happened, the reader will understand from what remains of 
this introductory narration. 

Soon after the period of the last incident I have recorded, 
I met, in Albemarle Street, a gentleman of his late majesty's 
household. This gentleman had received hospitalities, on 

15 different occasions, from my family: and he challenged 
me upon the strength of my family likeness. I did not 
attempt any disguise : I answered his questions ingen- 
uously, — and, on his pledging his word of honour that he 
would not betray me to my guardians, I gave him an 

20 address to my friend the attorney's. The next day I 
received from him a ;^io Bank-note. The letter enclos- 
ing it was delivered with other letters of business to the 
attorney ; but, though his look and manner informed me 
that he suspected its contents, he gave it up to me honour- 

25 ably and without demur. 

This present, from the particular service to which it was 
applied, leads me naturally to speak of the purpose which 
had allured me up to London, and which I had been (to 
use a forensic word) soliciting from the first day of my 

30 arrival in London, to that of my final departure. 

In so mighty a world as London, it will surprise my 
readers that I should not have found some means of 
staving off the last extremities of penury : and it will 
strike them that two resources at least must have been 



CONFESSIONS OF AN ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER i8i 

open to me, — viz., either to seek assistance from the 
friends of my family, or to turn my youthful talents and 
attainments into some channel of pecuniary emolument. 
As to the first course, I may observe, generally, that what 
I dreaded beyond all other evils was the chance of being 5 
reclaimed by my guardians ; not doubting that whatever 
power the law gave them would have been enforced against 
me to the utmost ; that is, to the extremity of forcibly 
restoring me to the school which I had quitted : a restora- 
tion which as it would in my eyes have been a dishonour, 10 
even if submitted to voluntarily, could not fail, when extorted 
from me in contempt and defiance of my known wishes and 
efforts, to have been a humiliation worse to me than 
death, and which would indeed have terminated in death. 
I was, therefore, shy enough of applying for assistance even 15 
in those quarters where I was sure of receiving it — at the 
risk of furnishing my guardians with any clue for recover- 
ing me. But, as to London in particular, though, doubt- 
less, my father had in his life-time had many friends there, 
yet, as ten years had passed since his death, I remembered 20 
few of them even by name : and never having seen London 
before, except once for a few hours, I knew not the address 
of even those few. To this mode of gaining help, there- 
fore, in part the difficulty, but much more the paramount 
fear which I have mentioned, habitually indisposed me. 25 
In regard to the other mode, I now feel half inclined to 
join my reader in wondering that I should have overlooked 
it. As a corrector of Greek proofs, if in no other way, I 
might doubtless have gained enough for my slender wants. 
Such an office as this I could have discharged with an 30 
exemplary and punctual accuracy that would soon have 
gained me the confidence of my employers. But it must 
not be forgotten that, even for such an office as this, it was 
necessary that I should first of all have an introduction to 
% 



1 82 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

some respectable publisher : and this I had no means of 
obtaining. To say the truth, however, it had never once 
occurred to me to think of literary labours as a source of 
profit. No mode sufficiently speedy of obtaining money 

5 had ever occurred to me, but that of borrowing it on the 
strength of my future claims and expectations. This mode 
I sought by every avenue to compass, and amongst other 
persons I applied to a Jew named D[ell].^ 

To this Jew, and to other advertising money-lenders, 

10 some of whom were, I believe, also Jews, I had introduced 
myself with an account of my expectations ; which account, 

1 To this same Jew, by the way, some eighteen months afterwards, 
I applied again on the same business ; and, dating at that time from 
a respectable college, I w^as fortunate enough to gain his serious atten- 
tion to my proposals. My necessities had not arisen from any extrav- 
agance or youthful levities (these my habits and the nature of my 
pleasures raised me far above), but simply from the vindictive malice 
of my guardian, who, when he found himself no longer able to prevent 
me from going to the university, had, as a parting token of his good 
nature, refused to sign an order for granting me a shilling beyond the 
allowance made to me at school — viz., £ioo per annum. Upon this 
sum it was, in my time, barely possible to have lived in college, and 
not possible to a man who, though above the paltry affectation of 
ostentatious disregard for money, and without any expensive tastes, 
confided nevertheless rather too much in servants, and did not delight 
in the petty details of minute economy. I soon, therefore, became 
embarrassed; and at length, after a most voluminous negotiation with 
the Jew (some parts of which, if I had leisure to rehearse them, would 
greatly amuse my readers), I was put in possession of the sum I asked 
for, on the " regular " terms of paying the Jew seventeen and a-half per 
cent, by way of annuity on all the money furnished ; Israel, on his part, 
graciously resuming no more than about ninety guineas of the said 
money, on account of an attorney's bill (for what services, to whom 
rendered, and when, whether at the siege of Jerusalem — at the build- 
ing of the Second Temple — or on some earlier occasion, I have not 
yet been able to discover). How many perches this bill measured I 
really forget ; but I still keep it in a cabinet of natural curiosities, and 
sometime or other I believe I shall present it to the British Museum. 



CONFESSIONS OF AN ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER 183 

on examining my father's will at Doctor's Commons, they 
had ascertained to be correct. The person there mentioned 

as the second son of , was found to have all the claims, 

or more than all, that I had stated : but one question still 
remained, which the faces of the Jews pretty significantly 5 
suggested, — was /that person? This doubt had never 
occurred to me as a possible one : I had rather feared, 
whenever my Jewish friends scrutinized me keenly, that I 
might be too well known to be that person — and that 
some scheme might be passing in their minds for entrap- 10 
ping me, and selling me to my guardians. It was strange 
to me to find my own self, inaterialiter considered (so I 
expressed it, for I doted on logical accuracy of distinc- 
tions), accused, or at least suspected, of counterfeiting my 
own sqM, formaliter considered. However, to satisfy their 15 
scruples, I took the only course in my power. Whilst I 
was in Wales, I had received various letters from young 
friends : these I produced : for I carried them constantly in 
my pocket — being, indeed, by this time, almost the only 
relics of my personal incumbrances (excepting the clothes 20 
I wore) which I had not in one way or other disposed of. 
Most of these letters were from the Earl of [Altamont], who 
was at that time my chief, or rather only, confidential friend. 
These letters were dated from Eton. I had also some from 
the Marquess of [Sligo], his father, who, though absorbed 25 
in agricultural pursuits, yet having been an Etonian him- 
self, and as good a scholar as a, nobleman needs to be — still 
retained an affection for classical studies, and for youthful 
scholars. He had, accordingly, from the time that I was 
fifteen, corresponded with me ; sometimes upon the great im- 30 
provements which he had made, or was meditating, in the 
counties of M[ayo] and Sl[igo] since I had been there; some- 
times upon the merits of a Latin poet ; at other times sug- 
gesting subjects to me on which he wished me to write verses. 



184 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

On reading the letters, one of my Jewish friends agreed 
to furnish two or three hundred pounds on my personal 
security — provided I could persuade the young Earl, who 
was, by the way, not older than myself, to guarantee the 
5 payment on our coming of age : the Jew's final object 
being, as I now suppose, not the trifling profit he could 
expect to make by me, but the prospect of establishing a con- 
nexion with my noble friend, whose immense expectations 
were well known to him. In pursuance of this proposal on 

10 the part of the Jew, about eight or nine days after I had 
received the ^10, I prepared to go down to Eton. Nearly 
;^3 of the money I had given to my money-lending friend, 
on his alleging that the stamps must be bought, in order 
that the writings might be preparing whilst I was away 

15 from London. I thought in my heart that he was lying; 
but I did not wish to give him any excuse for charging his 
own delays upon me. A smaller sum I had given to my 
friend the attorney, who was connected with the money- 
lenders as their lawyer, to which, indeed, he was entitled 

20 for his unfurnished lodgings. About fifteen shillings I had 
employed in re-establishing, though in a very humble way, 
my dress. Of the remainder I gave one-quarter to Ann, 
meaning on my return to have divided with her whatever 
might remain. These arrangements made, — soon after six 

-5 o'clock, on a dark winter evening, I set off, accompanied 
by Ann, towards Piccadilly ; for it was my intention to go 
down as far as Salt Hill on the Bath or Bristol mail. Our 
course lay through a part of the town which has now all 
disappeared, so that I can no longer retrace its ancient 

30 boundaries : Swallow Street, I think it was called. Having 
time enough before us, however, we bore away to the 
left until we came into Golden Square : there, near the 
corner of Sherrard Street, we sat down ; not washing to 
part in the tumult and blaze of Piccadilly. I had told her 



CONFESSIONS OF AN ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER 185 

of my plans some time before : and I now assured her 
again that she should share in my good fortune, if I met 
with any ; and that I would never forsake her, as soon as 
I had power to protect her. This I fully intended, as 
much from inclination as from a sense of duty: for, setting 5 
aside gratitude, which in any case must have made me her 
debtor for life, I loved her as affectionately as if she had 
been my sister : and at this moment, with sevenfold tender- 
ness, from pity at witnessing her extreme dejection. I had, 
apparently, most reason for dejection, because I was leav- 10 
ing the saviour of my life: yet I, considering the shock my 
health had received, was cheerful and full of hope. She, 
on the contrary, who was parting with one who had little 
means of serving her, except by kindness and brotherly 
treatment, was overcome by sorrow ; so that, when I kissed 15 
her at our final farewell, she put her arms about my neck, 
and wept without speaking a word. I hoped to return in 
a week at farthest, and I agreed with her that on the fifth 
night from that, and every night afterwards, she should 
wait for me at six o'clock near the bottom of Great Titch- 20 
field Street, which had been our customary haven, as it 
were, of rendezvous, to prevent our missing each other in 
the great Mediterranean of Oxford Street. This, and other 
measures of precaution I took : one only I forgot. She 
had either never told me, or (as a matter of no great 25 
interest) I had forgotten, her surname. It is a general 
practice, indeed, with girls of humble rank in her unhappy 
condition, not (as novel-reading women of higher preten- 
sions) to style themselves — Miss Douglas, Miss Mo?itague, 
etc., but simply by their Christian names, Mary, Jane, 30 
Frances, etc. Her surname, as the surest means of tracing 
her hereafter, I ought now to have inquired : but the truth 
is, having no reason to think that our meeting could, in 
consequence of a short interruption, be more difficult or 



1 86 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

uncertain than it had been for so many weeks, I had 
scarcely for a moment adverted to it as necessary, or 
placed it amongst my memoranda against this parting 
interview : and, my final anxieties being spent in comfort- 
5 ing her with hopes, and in pressing upon her the necessity 
of getting some medicines for a violent cough and hoarse- 
ness with which she was troubled, I wholly forgot it until 
it was too late to recall her. 

It was past eight o'clock when 1 reached the Gloucester 

lo coffee-house : and, the Bristol mail being on the point of 
going off, I mounted on the outside. The fine fluent 
motion ^ of this mail soon laid me asleep : it is somewhat 
remarkable that the first easy or refreshing sleep which I 
had enjoyed for some months was on the outside of a mail- 

15 coach — abed which, at this day, I find rather an uneasy 
one. Connected with this sleep was a little incident, 
which served, as hundreds of others did at that time, to 
convince me how easily a man who has never been in any 
great distress may pass through life without knowing, in his 

20 own person at least, anything of the possible goodness 
of the human heart — or, as I must add with a sigh, of its 
possible vileness. So thick a curtain of manners is drawn 
over the features and expression of men's natures, that to 
the ordinary observer the two extremities, and the infinite 

25 field of varieties which lie between them, are all con- 
founded — the vast and multitudinous compass of their 
several harmonies reduced to the meagre outline of differ- 
ences expressed in the gamut or alphabet of elementary 
sounds. The case was this : for the first four or five miles 

30 from London, I annoyed my fellow-passenger on the roof 
by occasionally falling against him when the coach gave a 

1 The Bristol mail is the best appointed in the kingdom — owing to 
the double advantages of an unusually good road, and of an extra suni 
for expenses subscribed by the Bristol merchants. 



CONFESSIONS OF AN ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER iSj 

lurch to his side ; and indeed, if the road had been less 
smooth and level than it is, I should have fallen off from 
weakness. Of this annoyance he complained heavily, as 
perhaps in the same circumstances most people would ; he 
expressed his complaint, however, more morosely than the 5 
occasion seemed to warrant ; and, if I had parted with 
him at that moment, I should have thought of him, if I 
had considered it worth while to think of him at all, as a 
surly and almost brutal fellow. However, I was conscious 
that I had given him some cause for complaint : and, 10 
therefore, I apologised to him, and assured him that I 
would do what I could to avoid falling asleep for the 
future ; and, at the same time, in as few words as possible, 
I explained to him that I was ill and in a weak state from 
long suffering; and that I could not- afford at that time to 15 
take an inside place. The man's manner changed, upon 
hearing this explanation, in an instant : and when I next 
woke for a minute from the noise and lights of Hounslow 
(for in spite of my wishes and efforts I had fallen asleep 
again within two minutes from the time I had spoken to 20 
him), I found that he had put his arm around me to pro- 
tect me from falling off : and for the rest of my journey he 
behaved to me with the gentleness of a woman, so that, at 
length, I almost lay in his arms : and this was the more 
kind, as he could not have known that I was not going the 25 
whole way to Bath or Bristol. Unfortunately, indeed, I 
^/id go rather farther than I intended : for so genial and 
refreshing was my sleep, that the next time after leaving 
Hounslow that I fully awoke, was upon the sudden pulling 
up of the mail, possibly at a post-office ; and on inquiry, I 30 
found that we had reached Maidenhead — six or seven 
miles, I think, ahead of Salt Hill. Here T alighted: and 
for the half-minute that the mail stopped, I M^as entreated 
by my friendly companion, who, from the transient glimpse 



1 88 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

I had had of him in Piccadilly, seemed to me to be a gentle- 
man's butler — or person of that rank, to go to bed with- 
out delay. This I promised, though with no intention of 
doing so : and in fact, I immediately set forward, or rather 

5 backward, on foot. It must then have been nearly mid- 
night : but so slowly did I creep along, that I heard a clock 
in a cottage strike four before I turned down the lane from 
Slough to Eton. The air and the sleep had both refreshed 
me ; but I was weary nevertheless. I remember a thought, 

10 obvious enough, and which has been prettily expressed by 
a Roman poet, which gave me some consolation at that 
moment under my poverty. There had been some time 
before a murder committed on or near Hounslow Heath. 
I think I cannot be mistaken when I say that the name of 

15 the murdered person was Steele, and that he was the owner 
of a lavender plantation in that neighbourhood. Every 
step of my progress was bringing me nearer to the heath : 
and it naturally occurred to me that I and the accursed 
murderer, if he were that night abroad, might at every 

20 instant be unconsciously approaching each other through 
the darkness : in which case, said I, — supposing that I, 
instead of being, as indeed I am, little better than an 
outcast, — 

" Lord of my learning and no land beside," 

25 were, like my friend. Lord [Altamont], heir by general 
repute to ;^7o,ooo per ann., what a panic should I be 
under at this moment about my throat ! — indeed, it was not 
likely that Lord [Altamont] should ever be in my situation. 
But nevertheless, the spirit of the remark remains true — 

30 that vast power and possessions make a man shamefully 
afraid of dying : and I am convinced that many of the 
most intrepid adventurers who, by fortunately being poor, 
enjoy the full use of their natural courage, would, if at the 



CONFESSIONS OF AN ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER 189 

very instant of going into action news were brought to 
them that they had unexpectedly succeeded to an estate in 
England of ^50,000 a year, feel their dislike to bullets 
considerably sharpened^ — and their efforts at perfect equa- 
nimity and self-possession proportionably difficult. So true 5 
it is, in the language of a wise man whose own experience 
had made him acquainted with both fortunes, that riches 
are better fitted — 

" To slacken virtue, and abate her edge. 
Than tempt her to do aught may merit praise." 10 

Paradise Regained. 

I dally with my subject because, to myself, the remem- 
brance of these times is profoundly interesting. But my 
reader shall not have any further cause to complain : for I 
now hasten to its close. — In the road between Slough and 
Eton, I fell asleep: and, just as the morning began to 15 
dawn, I was awakened by the voice of a man standing over 
me and surveying me. I know not what he was : he was 
an ill-looking fellow — but not therefore of necessity an 
ill-meaning fellow : or, if he were, I suppose he thought that 
no person sleeping out-of-doors in winter would be worth 20 
robbing. In which conclusion, however, as it regarded 
myself, I beg to assure him, if he should be among my 
readers, that he was mistaken. After a slight remark he 
passed on : and I was not sorry at his disturbance, as it 
enabled me to pass through Eton before people were 25 
generally up. The night had been heavy and lowering : 
but towards the morning it had changed to a slight frost : 

1 It will be objected that many men, of the highest rank and wealth, 
have in our own day, as well as throughout our history, been amongst the 
foremost in courting danger in battle. True ; but this is not the case 
supposed; long familiarity with power has to them deadened its effect 
and attractions. 



190 SELECTIONS FROM BE QUINCE Y 

and the ground and the trees were now covered with rime. 
I slipped through Eton unobserved ; washed myself, and, as 
far as possible, adjusted my dress at a little public-house 
in Windsor ; and about eight o'clock went down towards 
5 Pote's. On my road I met some junior boys of whom I 
made inquiries : an Etonian is always a gentleman ; and, 
in spite of my shabby habiliments, they answered me 
civilly. My friend, Lord [Altamont], was gone to the 
University of [Cambridge]. '' Ibi omnis effusus labor ! " 

10 I had, however, other friends at Eton : but it is not to all 
who wear that name in prosperity that a man is willing to 
present himself in distress. On recollecting myself, how- 
ever, I asked for the Earl of D[esart] to whom (though my 
acquaintance with him was not so intimate as with some 

15 others) I should not have shrunk from presenting myself 
under any circumstances. He was still at Eton, though I 
believe on the wing for Cambridge. I called, was received 
kindly, and asked to breakfast. 

Here let me stop for a moment to check my reader from 

20 any erroneous conclusions : because I have had occasion 
incidentally to speak of various patrician friends, it must 
not be supposed that I have myself any pretensions to 
rank or high blood. I thank God that I have not : — I am 
the son of a plain English merchant, esteemed during his 

25 life for his great integrity, and strongly attached to literary 
pursuits; indeed, he was himself, anonymously, an author: 
if he had lived, it was expected that he would have been 
very rich ; but, dying prematurely, he left no more than 
about ^30,000 amongst seven different claimants. My 

30 mother I may mention with honour, as still more highly 
gifted. For, though unpretending to the name and honours 
of a literary woman, I shall presume to call her (what many 
literary women are not) an intellectual woman : and I believe 
that if ever her letters should be collected and published, 



CONFESSIONS OF A.V ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER 191 

they would be thought generally to exhibit as much strong 
and masculine sense, delivered in as pure " mother Eng- 
lish," racy and fresh with idiomatic graces, as any in our 
language — hardly excepting those of Lady M. W. Mon- 
tague. — These are my honours of descent : I have no 
others : and I have thanked God sincerely that I have not, 
because, in my judgment, a station which raises a man too 
eminently above the level of his fellow-creatures is not the 
most favourable to moral, or to intellectual qualities. 

Lord D[esart] placed before me a most magnificent break- 
fast. It was really so ; but in my eyes it seemed trebly mag- 
nificent — from being the first regular meal, the first "good 
man's table," that I had sat down to for months. Strange 
to say, however, I could scarcely eat anything. On the 
day when I first received my £\o Bank-note, I had gone 
to a baker's shop and bought a couple of rolls : this very 
shop I had two months or six weeks before surveyed with 
an eagerness of desire which it was almost humiliating to 
me to recollect. I remembered the story about Otway ; 
and feared that there might be danger in eating too 
rapidly. But I had no need for alarm, my appetite was 
quite sunk, and I became sick before I had eaten half of what 
I had bought. This effect from eating what approached to 
a meal, I continued to feel for weeks : or, when I did not 
experience any nausea, part of what I ate was rejected, 
sometimes with acidity, sometimes immediately, and without 
any acidity. On the present occasion, at Lord D[esart]'s 
table, I found myself not at all better than usual : and, in 
the midst of luxuries, I had no appetite. I had, however, 
unfortunately, at all times a craving for wine : I explained my 
situation, therefore, to Lord D[esart], and gave him a short 
account of my late sufferings, at which he expressed great 
compassion, and called for wine. This gave me a momentary 
relief and pleasure ; and on all occasions when I had an 



192 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

opportunity, I never failed to drink wine — which 1 wor- 
shipped then as I have since worshipped opium. I am 
convinced, however, that this indulgence in wine contrib- 
uted to strengthen my malady ; for the tone of my 
5 stomach was apparently quite sunk ; but by a better regi- 
men it might sooner, and perhaps effectually, have been 
revived. I hope that it was not from this love of wine 
that I lingered in the neighbourhood of my Eton friends : 
I persuaded myself thoi that it was from reluctance to ask 

10 of Lord D[esart], on whom I was conscious I had not 
sufficient claims, the particular service in quest of which I 
had come down to Eton. I was, however, unwilling to lose 
my journey, and — I asked it. Lord D[esart], whose good 
nature was unbounded, and which, in regard to myself 

15 had been measured rather by his compassion perhaps for 
my condition, and his knowledge of my intimacy with 
some of his relatives, than by an over-rigorous inquiry into 
the extent of my own direct claims, faltered, nevertheless, at 
this request. He acknowledged that he did not like to 

20 have any dealings with money-lenders, and feared lest such 
a transaction might come to the ears of his connexions. 
Moreover, he doubted whether his signature, whose expec- 
tations were so much more bounded than those of [his 
cousin], would avail with my unchristian friends. How- 

25 ever, he did not wish, as it seemed, to mortify me by 
an absolute refusal : for after a little consideration, he 
promised, under certain conditions which he pointed out, 
to give his security. Lord D[esart] was at this time not 
eighteen years of age : but I have often doubted, on recol- 

30 lecting since the good sense and prudence which on this 
occasion he mingled with so much urbanity of manner, an 
urbanity which in him wore the grace of youthful sincerity, 
whether any statesman — the oldest and the most accom- 
plished in diplomacy — could have acquitted himself better 



CONFESSIONS OF A A' ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER 193 

under the same circumstances. Most people, indeed, can- 
not be addressed on such a business without surveying 
you with looks as austere and unpropitious as those of a 
Saracen's head. 

Recomforted by this promise, which was not quite equal 5 
to the best, but far above the worst that I had pictured 
to myself as possible, I returned in a Windsor coach to 
London three days after I had quitted it. And now I 
come to the end of my story : — the Jews did not approve 
of Lord D[esart]'s terms; whether they would in the end 10 
have acceded to them, and were only seeking time for 
making due inquiries, I know not ; but many delays were 
made — time passed on — the small fragment of my Bank- 
note had just melted away ; and before any conclusion 
could have been put to the business, I must have relapsed 15 
into my former state of wretchedness. Suddenly, however, 
at this crisis, an opening was made, almost by accident, 
for reconciliation with my friends. I quitted London, in 
haste, for a remote part of England : after some time, I 
proceeded to the university ; and it was not until many 20 
months had passed away that I had it in my power again 
to revisit the ground which had become so interesting to 
me, and to this day remains so, as the chief scene of my 
youthful sufferings. 

Meantime, what had become of poor Ann ? For her I 25 
have reserved my concluding words: according to our agree- 
ment, I sought her daily, and waited for her every night, 
so long as I staid in London, at the corner of Titchfield 
Street. I inquired for her of every one who was likely to 
know her ; and during the last hours of my stay in London 30 
I put into activity every means of tracing her that my 
knowledge of London suggested, and the limited extent of 
my power made possible. The street where she had lodged 
I knew, but not the house ; and I remembered at last some 



194 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCEY 

account which she had given me of ill treatment from her 
landlord, which made it probable that she had quitted 
those lodgings before we parted. She had few acquaint- 
ance ; most people, besides, thought that the earnestness 

5 of my inquiries arose from motives which moved their 
laughter, or their slight regard ; and others, thinking I 
was in chase of a girl who had robbed me of some trifles, 
were naturally and excusably indisposed to give me any 
clue to her, if, indeed, they had any to give. Finally, as my 

10 despairing resource, on the day I left London I put into 
the hands of the only person who (I was sure) must know 
Ann by sight, from having been in company with us once 

or twice, an address to in shire, at that time the 

residence of my family. But, to this hour, I have never 

15 heard a syllable about her. This, amongst such troubles 
as most men meet with in this life, has been my heaviest 
affliction. — If she lived, doubtless we must have been 
sometimes in search of each other, at the very same 
moment, through the mighty labyrinths of London ; per- 

20 haps even within a few feet of each other — a barrier no 
wider in a London street often amounting in the end to 
a separation for eternity ! During some years, I hoped 
that she did live; and I suppose that, in the literal and 
unrhetorical use of the word myriad^ I may say that on 

25 my different visits to London, I have looked into many, 
many myriads of female faces, in the hope of meeting her. 
I should know her again amongst a thousand, if I saw her 
for a moment ; for, though not handsome, she had a sweet 
expression of countenance, and a peculiar and graceful 

30 carriage of the head. — I sought her, I have said, in hope. 
So it was for years ; but now I should fear to see her ; and 
her cough, which grieved me when I parted with her, is 
now my consolation. I now wish to see her no longer ; 
but think of her. more gladly, as one long since laid in the 



CONFESSIONS OF AN ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER 195 

grave ; in the grave, I would hope, of a Magdalen ; taken 
away, before injuries and cruelty had blotted out and 
transfigured her ingenuous nature, or the brutalities of 
ruffians had completed the ruin they had begun. 

So then, Oxford Street, stony-hearted, step-mother ! thou 5 
that listenest to the sighs of orphans, and drinkest the tears 
of children, at length I was dismissed from thee : the time 
was come at last that I no more should pace in anguish thy 
never-ending terraces ; no more should dream, and wake in 
captivity to the pangs of hunger. Successors, too many, to 10 
myself and Ann, have, doubtless, since trodden in our foot- 
steps, — inheritors of our calamities : other orphans than 
Ann have sighed : tears have been shed by other children : 
and thou, Oxford Street, hast since, doubtless, echoed to the 
groans of innumerable hearts. For myself, however, the 15 
storm which 1 had outlived seemed to have been the pledge 
of a long fair-weather ; the premature sufferings which I 
had paid down to have been accepted as a ransom for many 
years to come, as a price of long immunity from sorrow : 
and if again I walked in London, a solitary and contem- 20 
plative man (as oftentimes I did), I walked for the most 
part in serenity and peace of mind. And, although it is 
true that the calamities of my noviciate in London had 
struck root so deeply in my bodily constitution that after- 
wards they shot up and flourished afresh, and grew into a 25 
noxious umbrage that has overshadowed and darkened my 
latter years, yet these second assaults of suffering were 
met with a fortitude more confirmed, with the resources of 
a maturer intellect, and with alleviations from sympathising 
affection — how deep and tender ! 3° 

Thus, however, with whatsoever alleviations, years that 
were far asunder were bound together by subtle links of 
suffering derived from a common root. And herein I notice 



196 SELECTIONS EROM DE QUINCEY 

an instance of the short-sightedness of human desires, that 
oftentimes on moonlight nights, during my first mournful 
abode in London, my consolation was (if such it could be 
thought) to gaze from Oxford Street up every avenue in 

5 succession which pierces through the heart of Marylebone 
to the fields and the woods; and that, said I, travelling with 
my eyes up the long vistas which lay part in light and part 
in shade, " that is the road to the north, and therefore to 
[Grasmere], and if I had the wings of a dove, that way I 

10 would fly for comfort." Thus I said, and thus I wished, 
in my blindness; yet, even in that very northern region it 
was, even in that very valley, nay, in that very house to 
which my erroneous wishes pointed, that this second birth 
of my sufferings began ; and that they again threatened to 

15 besiege the citadel of life and hope. There it was, that for 
years I was persecuted by visions as ugly, and as ghastly 
phantoms as ever haunted the couch of an Orestes : and in 
this unhappier than he, that sleep which comes to all as a 
respite and a restoration, and to him especially, as a blessed^ 

20 balm for his wounded heart and his haunted brain, visited 
me as my bitterest scourge. Thus blind was I in my desires ; 
yet, if a veil interposes between the dim-sightedness of man 
and his future calamities, the same veil hides from him their 
alleviations ; and a grief which had not been feared is met 

25 by consolations which had not been hoped. I, therefore, who 
participated, as it were, in the troubles of Orestes (except- 
ing only in his agitated conscience), participated no less 
in all his supports : my Eumenides, like his, were at my 
bed-feet, and stared in upon me through the curtains: but, 

30 watching by my pillow, or defrauding herself of sleep to 
bear me company through the heavy watches of the night, 
sat my Electra : for thou, beloved [Margaret], dear com- 
panion of my later years, thou wast my Electra ! and neither 

^ ^CKov vttvt] deXyrjTpov iiriKovpov voaov. 



CONFESSIONS OF AN ENGLISH OPIUM-EA TER 



197 



in nobility of mind nor in long-suffering affection, wouldst 
permit that a Grecian sister should excel an English wife. 
For thou thoughtest not much to stoop to humble offices of 
kindness, and to servile^ ministrations of tenderest affec- 
tion ; — to wipe away for years the unwholesome dews upon 
the forehead, or to refresh the lips when parched and baked 
with fever ; nor, even when thy own peaceful slumbers had 
by long sympathy become infected with the spectacle of my 
dread contest with phantoms and shadowy enemies that 
oftentimes bade me '' sleep no more ! " — not even then, 
didst thou utter a complaint or any murmur, nor withdraw 
thy angelic smiles, nor shrink from thy service of love more 
than Electra did of old. For she too, though she was a 
Grecian woman, and the daughter of the king ^ of men, yet 
wept sometimes, and hid her face ^ in her robe. 

But these troubles are past ; and thou wilt read these 
records of a period so dolorous to us both as the legend of 
some hideous dream that can return no more. Meantime, 
I am again in London : and again I pace the terraces of 
Oxford Street by night : and oftentimes, when I am oppressed 
by anxieties that demand all my philosophy and the com- 
fort of thy presence to support, and yet remember that I 
am separated from thee by three hundred miles, and the 
length of three dreary months, — I look up the streets that 

1 y\hv dovXevfxa. Eiirip. Crest. 

^ dva^ dvdpcjv '' Ayafie/mvcov. 

^ofifxa OeLo-' iiau ireir\<av. The scholar will know that throughout this 
passage I refer to the earlier scenes of the " Orestes " ; one of the most 
beautiful exhibitions of the domestic affections which even the dramas 
of Euripides can furnish. To the English reader, it may be necessary 
to say, that the situation at the opening of the drama is that of a brother 
attended only by his sister during the demoniacal possession of a suf- 
fering conscience (or, in the mythology of the play, haunted by the 
furies), and in circumstances of immediate danger from enemies, and 
of desertion or cold regard from nominal friends, 



198 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

run northwards from Oxford Street, upon moonlight nights, 
and recollect my youthful ejaculation of anguish; — and 
remembering that thou art sitting alone in that same valley, 
and mistress of that very house to which my heart turned 
5 in its blindness nineteen years ago, I think that, though 
blind indeed, and scattered to the winds of late, the prompt- 
ings of my heart may yet have had reference to a remoter 
time, and may be justified if read in another meaning: — 
and, if I could allow myself to descend again to the impo- 
10 tent wishes of childhood, I should again say to myself, as 
I look to the north, " Oh, that I had the wings of a dove — " 
and with how just a confidence in thy good and gracious 
nature might I add the other half of my early ejaculation 
— "And that way I would fly for comfort." 

The Pleasures of Opium 

15 It is so long since I first took opium that if it had been 
a trifling incident in my life I might have forgotten its date : 
but cardinal events are not to be forgotten ; and from cir- 
cumstances connected with it I remember that it must be 
referred to the autumn of 1804. During that season I was 

20 in London, having come thither for the first time since my 
entrance at college. And my introduction to opium arose 
in the following way. From an early age I had been accus- 
tomed to wash my head in cold water at least once a day : 
being suddenly seized with toothache, I attributed it to 

25 some relaxation caused by an accidental intermission of 
that practice ; jumped out of bed ; plunged my head into 
a basin of cold water ; and with hair thus wetted went to 
sleep. The next morning, as I need hardly say, I awoke 
with excruciating rheumatic pains of the head and face, 

30 from which I had hardly any respite for about twenty days. 
On the twenty-first day, I think it was, and on a Sunday, 



CONFESSIONS OF AN ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER 199 

that I went out into the streets ; rather to run away, if 
possible, from my torments, than with any distinct purpose. 
By accident I met a college acquaintance who recommended 
opium. Opium ! dread agent of unimaginable pleasure and 
pain ! I had heard of it as I had of manna or of ambrosia, but 5 
no further : how unmeaning a sound was it at that time ! what 
solemn chords does it now strike upon my heart ! what 
heart-quaking vibrations of sad and happy remembrances ! 
Reverting for a moment to these, I feel a mystic importance 
attached to the minutest circumstances connected with the 10 
place and the time, and the man, if man he was, that first 
laid open to me the Paradise of Opium-eaters. It was a 
Sunday afternoon, wet and cheerless : and a duller spectacle 
this earth of ours has not to show than a rainy Sunday in 
London. My road homewards lay through Oxford Street; 15 
and near "the stately Pantheon," as Mr. Wordsworth has 
obligingly called it, I saw a druggist's shop. The druggist, 
unconscious minister of celestial pleasures ! — as if in sym- 
pathy with the rainy Sunday, looked dull and stupid, just 
as any mortal druggist might be expected to look on a 20 
Sunday : and, when I asked for the tincture of opium, he 
gave it to me as any other man might do : and furthermore, 
out of my shilling, returned me what seemed to be real cop- 
per halfpence, taken out of a real wooden drawer. Never- 
theless, in spite of such indications of humanity, he has 25 
ever since existed in my mind as the beatific vision of an 
immortal druggist, sent down to earth on a special mission 
to myself. And it confirms me in this way of considering 
him, that, when I next came up to London, I sought him 
near the stately Pantheon, and found him not : and thus 30 
to me, who knew not his name (if indeed he had one), he 
seemed rather to have vanished from Oxford Street than 
to have removed in any bodily fashion. The reader may 
choose to think of him as, possibly, no more than a sublunary 



200 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

druggist: it may be so: but my faith is better: I believe 
him to have evanesced,^ or evaporated. So unwillingly 
would I connect any mortal remembrances with that hour, 
and place, and creature, that first brought me acquainted 
5 with the celestial drug. 

Arrived at my lodgings, it may be supposed that I lost 
not a moment in taking the quantity prescribed. I was 
necessarily ignorant of the whole art and mystery of opium- 
taking : and, what I took, I took under every disadvantage. 

lo But I took it : — and in an hour, oh ! heavens ! what a 
revulsion ! w^hat an upheaving, from its lowest depths, 
of the inner spirit ! what an apocalypse of the world 
within me ! That my pains had vanished, was now a trifle 
in my eyes : — this negative effect was swallowed up in 
the immensity of those positive effects which had opened 
before me — in the abyss of divine enjoyment thus suddenly 
revealed. Here was a panacea — a cftapfxaKov vr)7revOe<; for all 
human woes : here w^as the secret of happiness, about which 
philosophers had disputed for so many ages, at once dis- ) 

20 covered : happiness might now be bought for a penny, and 
carried in the waistcoat pocket : portable ecstasies might 
be had corked up in a pint bottle : and peace of mind could • 
be sent down in gallons by the mail-coach. But, if I talk 
in this way, the reader will think I am laughing : and I can 

1 Evanesced : — This way of going off the stage of life appears to have 
been well known in the seventeenth century, but at that time to have ! 
been considered a peculiar privilege of blood-royal, and by no means to 
be allowed to druggists. For about the year 1686, a poet of rather 
ominous name (and who, by the by, did ample justice to his name) — 
viz., Mr. Flat-man^ in speaking of the death of Charles II, expresses ' 
his surprise that any prince should commit so absurd an act as dying; 
because, says he, 

" Kings should disdain to die, and only disappear.^'' 
They should abscond, that is, into the other world. 



CONFESSIONS OF AN ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER 201 

assure him, that nobody will laugh long who deals much 
with opium : its pleasures even are of a grave and solemn 
complexion ; and in his happiest state, the opium-eater can- 
not present himself in the character of "L'Allegro " : even 
then, he speaks and thinks as becomes "II Penseroso." 5 
Nevertheless, I have a very reprehensible way of jesting at 
times in the midst of my own misery : and, unless when I am 
checked by some more powerful feelings, I am afraid I shall 
be guilty of this indecent practice even in these annals of 
suffering or enjoyment. The reader must allow a little to 10 
my infirm nature in this respect : and with a few indul- 
gences of that sort, I shall endeavour to be as grave, if not 
drowsy, as fits a theme like opium, so anti-mercurial as it 
really is, and so drowsy as it is falsely reputed. 

And, first, one word with respect to its bodily effects: 15 
for upon all that has been hitherto written on the subject 
of opium, whether by travellers in Turkey, who may plead 
their privilege of lying as an old immemorial right, or by 
professors of medicine, writing ex cathedra, — I have but 
one emphatic criticism to pronounce — Lies ! lies ! lies ! I 20 
remember once, in passing a book-stall, to have caught these 
words from a page of some satiric author : — " By this time 
I became convinced that the London newspapers spoke 
truth at least twice a week, viz., on Tuesday and Saturday, 

and might safely be depended upon for the list of 25 

bankrupts." In like manner, I do by no means deny that 
some truths have been delivered to the world in regard to 
opium : thus it has been repeatedly affirmed by the learned 
that opium is a dusky brown in colour ; and this, take 
notice, I grant : secondly, that it is rather dear ; which I 30 
also grant : for in my time, East-India opium has been three 
guineas a pound, and Turkey eight : and, thirdly, that if 
you eat a good deal of it, most probably you must do what 
is particularly disagreeable to any man of regular habits, 



202 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

viz., die.^ These weighty propositions are, all and sin- 
gular, true : I cannot gainsay them : and truth ever was, 
and will be, commendable. But in these three theorems, I 
believe we have exhausted the stock of knowledge as yet 
5 accumulated by man on the subject of opium. And there- 
fore, worthy doctors, as there seems to be room for further 
discoveries, stand aside, and allow me to come forward and 
lecture on this matter. 

First, then, it is not so much affirmed as taken for granted 

lo by all who ever mention opium, formally or incidentally, 
that it does, or can, produce intoxication. Now, reader, 
assure yourself, vieo periculo, that no quantity of opium ever 
did, or could intoxicate. As to the tincture of opium (com- 
monly called laudanum) that might certainly intoxicate if 

15 a man could bear to take enough of it ; but why ? because 
it contains so much proof spirit, and not because it contains 
so much opium. But crude opium, I affirm peremptorily, is 
incapable of producing any state of body at all resembling 
that which is produced by alcohol : and not in degree only 

20 incapable, but even in kind : it is not in the quantity of its 
effects merely, but in the quality, that it differs altogether. 
The pleasure given by wine is always mounting, and tending 
to a crisis, after which it declines : that from opium, when 
once generated, is stationary for eight or ten hours : the 

25 first, to borrow a technical distinction from medicine, is a 
case of acute — the second, of chronic pleasure : the one 

is a flame, the other a steady and equable glow. But the: 

I 

1 Of this, however, the learned appear latterly to have doubted : for 
in a pirated edition of Buchan's " Domestic Medicine," which I once saw 
in the hands of a farmer's wife who was studying it for the benefit of 
her health, the Doctor was made to say — " Be particularly careful never 
to take above fi\e-and-twenty oimces of laudanum at once " ; the true 
reading being probably five-and-twenty drops, which are held equal to 
about one grain of crude opium. 



CONFESSIONS OF AN ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER 203 

main distinction lies in this, and whereas wine disorders 
the mental faculties, opium, on the contrary, if taken in a 
proper manner, introduces amongst them the most exquisite 
order, legislation, and harmony. Wine robs a man of his 
self-possession : opium greatly invigorates it. Wine unsettles 5 
and clouds the judgment, and gives a preternatural bright- 
ness and a vivid exaltation to the contempts and the admi- 
rations, the loves and the hatreds, of the drinker : opium on 
the contrary communicates serenity and equipoise to all the 
faculties, active or passive : and with respect to the temper 10 
and moral feelings in general, it gives simply that sort of 
vital warmth which is approved by the judgment, and which 
would probably always accompany a bodily constitution of 
primeval or antediluvian health. Thus, for instance, opium, 
like wine, gives an expansion to the heart and the benevo- 15 
lent affections : but then, with this remarkable difference, 
that in the sudden development of kind-heartedness which 
accompanies inebriation, there is always more or less of a 
maudlin character, which exposes it to the contempt of the 
by-stander. Men shake hands, swear eternal friendship, 20 
and shed tears — no mortal knows why : and the sensual 
creature is clearly uppermost. But the expansion of the 
benigner feelings incident to opium, is no febrile access, 
but a healthy restoration to that state which the mind 
would naturally recover upon the removal of any deep- 25 
seated irritation of pain that had disturbed and quarrelled 
with the impulses of a heart originally just and good. 
True it is, that even wine, up to a certain point, and with 
certain men, rather tends to exalt and to steady the intel- 
lect : I myself, who have never been a great wine-drinker, 30 
used to find that half a dozen glasses of wine advanta- 
geously affected the faculties — brightened and intensified 
the consciousness — and gave to the mind a feeling of being 
" ponderibus librata suis " : and certainly it is most absurdly 



2 04 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

said in popular language of any man that he is disguised 
in liquor: for, on the contrary, most men are disguised by 
sobriety; and it is when they are drinking (as some old 
gentleman says in Athenaeus), that men eavrov? €/x<^avt^ot)o-iv 
5 oirtj/es dfrtv — display themselves in their true complexion of 
character ; which surely is not disguising themselves. But 
still, wine constantly leads a man to the brink of absurdity 
and extravagance ; and, beyond a certain point, it is sure to 
volatilise and to disperse the intellectual energies : whereas 

10 opium always seems to compose what had been agitated, 
and to concentrate what had been distracted. In short, to 
sum up all in one word, a man who is inebriated, or tending 
to inebriation, is, and feels that he is, in a condition which 
calls up into supremacy the merely human, too often the 

15 brutal, part of his nature: but the opium-eater (I speak of 
him who is not suffering from any disease, or other remote 
effects of opium) feels that the diviner part of his nature is 
paramount ; that is, the moral affections are in a state of 
cloudless serenity ; and over all is the great light of the 

20 majestic intellect. 

This is the doctrine of the true church on the subject of 
opium: of which church I acknowledge myself to be the 
only member — the alpha and the omega : but then it is to 
be recollected that I speak from the ground of a large and 

25 profound personal experience : whereas most of the unscien- 
tific ^ authors who have at all treated of opium, and even of 

1 Amongst the great herd of travellers, etc., who show sufficiently by 
their stupidity that they never held any intercourse with opium, I must 
caution my readers especially against the brilliant author of " Anasta- 
sius." This gentleman, whose wit would lead one to presume him an 
opium-eater, has made it impossible to consider him in that character 
from the grievous misrepresentation which he gives of its effects, at 
pp. 215-17 of vol. i. Upon consideration, it must appear such to the 
author himself; for, waiving the errors I have insisted on in the text, 
which (and others) are adopted in the fullest manner, he will himself 



COiVFESSIONS OF A AT ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER 205 

those who have written expressly on the materia medica, 
make it evident, from the horror they express of it, that 
their experimental knowledge of its action is none at all. 
I will, however, candidly acknowledge that I have met with 
one person who bore evidence to its intoxicating power, 5 
such as staggered my own incredulity : for he was a surgeon, 
and had himself taken opium largely. I happened to say 
to him that his enemies, as I had heard, charged him with 
talking nonsense on politics, and that his friends apologized 
for him by suggesting that he was constantly in a state of 10 
intoxication from opium. Now the accusation, said I, is 
not priina fade, and of necessity, an absurd one : but the 
defence is. To my surprise, however, he insisted that both 
his enemies and his friends were in the right : " I will main- 
tain," said he, "that I do talk nonsense; and secondly, I 15 
will maintain that I do not talk nonsense upon principle, 
or with any view to profit, but solely and simply," said 
he, "solely and simply, — solely and simply " (repeating it 
three times over), "because I am drunk with opium; and 
that daily." I replied that, as to the allegation of his 20 
enemies, as it seemed to be established upon such respect- 
able testimony, seeing that the three parties concerned all 

admit, that an old gentleman, "with a snow-white beard," who eats 
'• ample doses of opium," and is yet able to deliver what is meant and 
received as very weighty counsel on the bad effects of that practice, is 
but an indifferent evidence that opium either kills people prematurely, or 
sends them into a mad-house. But for my part, I see into this old gen- 
tleman and his motives ; the fact is, he was enamoured of " the little 
golden receptacle of the pernicious drug " which Anastasius carried about 
him ; and no way of obtaining it so safe and so feasible occurred as that 
of frightening its owner out of his wits (which, by the by, are none of 
the strongest). This commentary throws a new light upon the case, 
and greatly improves it as a story; for the old gentleman's speech, 
considered as a lecture on pharmacy, is highly absurd, but, considered 
as a hoax on Anastasius, it reads excellently. 



2o6 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

agreed in it, it did not become me to question it ; but the 
defence set up I must demur to. He proceeded to discuss 
the matter, and to lay down his reasons ; but it seemed to 
me so impolite to pursue an argument which must have 
5 presumed a man mistaken in a point belonging to his own 
profession, that I did not press him even when his course of 
argument seemed open to objection : not to mention that 
a man who talks nonsense, even though " with no view to 
profit," is not altogether the most agreeable partner in a 

10 dispute, whether as opponent or respondent. I confess, 
however, that the authority of a surgeon, and one who was 
reputed a good one, may seem a weighty one to my preju- 
dice : but still I must plead my experience, which was 
greater than his greatest by 7000 drops a day; and, though 

15 it was not possible to suppose a medical man unacquainted 
with the characteristic symptoms of vinous intoxication, it 
yet struck me that he might proceed on a logical error of 
using the word intoxication with too great latitude, and 
extending it generally to all modes of nervous excitement, 

20 instead of restricting it as the expression for a specific sort 
of excitement, connected with certain diagnostics. Some 
people have maintained, in my hearing, that they have been 
drunk upon green tea : and a medical student in London, 
for whose knowledge in his profession I have reason to feel 

25 great respect, assured me, the other day, that a patient, in 
recovering from an illness, had got drunk on a beef-steak. 

Having dwelt so much on this first and leading error in 
respect to opium, I shall notice very briefly a second and a 
third ; which are, that the elevation of spirits produced by 

30 opium is necessarily followed by a proportionate depression, 
and that the natural and even immediate consequence of 
opium is torpor and stagnation, animal and mental. The 
first of these errors I shall content myself with simply deny- 
ing, assuring my reader, that for ten years, during which I 



CONFESSIONS OF AN ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER 207 

took opium at intervals, the day succeeding to that on which 
I allowed myself this luxury was always a day of unusually 
good spirits. 

With respect to the torpor supposed to follow, or rather, 
if we were to credit the numerous pictures of Turkish opium- 5 
eaters, to accompany the practice of opium-eating, I deny 
that also. Certainly, opium is classed under the head of 
narcotics ; and some such effect it may produce in the end : 
but the primary effects of opium are always, and in the 
highest degree, to excite and stimulate the system : this 10 
first stage of its action always lasted with me, during my 
noviciate, for upwards of eight hours ; so that it must be 
the fault of the opium-eater himself if he does not so time 
his exhibition of the dose, to speak medically, as that the 
whole weight of its narcotic influence may descend upon his 15 
sleep. Turkish opium-eaters, it seems, are absurd enough to 
sit, like so many equestrian statues, on logs of wood as stupid 
as themselves. But that the reader may judge of the degree 
in which opium is likely to stupify the faculties of an Eng- 
lishman, I shall, by way of treating the question illustra- 20 
tively, rather than argumentatively, describe the way in 
whic¥;I myself often passed an opium evening in London, 
during the period between 1804 and 1812. It will be seen, 
that at least opium did not move me to seek solitude, and 
much less to seek inactivity, or the torpid state of self- 25 
involution ascribed to the Turks. I give this account at the 
risk of being pronounced a crazy enthusiast or visionary : 
but I regard that little : I must desire my reader to bear 
in mind that I was a hard student, and at severe studies 
for all the rest of my time : and certainly I had a right 30 
occasionally to relaxations as well as other people : these, 
however, I allowed myself but seldom. 

The late Duke of [Norfolk] used to say, '' Next Friday, 
by the blessing of Heaven, I purpose to be drunk " : and in 



2o8 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE V 

like manner I used to fix beforehand how often, within a 
given time, and when, I would commit a debauch of opium. 
This was seldom more than once in three weeks : for at 
that time I could not have ventured to call every day (as 
5 I did afterwards) for " a glass of laudaiiiuji negus, warm, 
and without suga?\^^ No: as I have said, I seldom drank 
laudanum, at that time, more than once in three weeks: 
this was usually on a Tuesday or a Saturday night ; my 
reason for which was this. In those days Grassini sang at 

lo the Opera : and her voice was delightful to me beyond all 
that I had ever heard. I know not what may be the state 
of the Opera-house now, having never been within its walls 
for seven or eight years, but at that time it was by much 
the most pleasant place of public resort in London for pass- 

15 ing an evening. Five shillings admitted one to the gallery, 
which was subject to far less annoyance than the pit of the 
theatres : the orchestra was distinguished by its sweet and 
melodious grandeur from all English orchestras, the com- 
position of which, I confess, is not acceptable to my ear, 

20 from the predominance of the clangorous instruments, and 
the absolute tyranny of the violin. The choruses were 
divine to hear : and when Grassini appeared in some^nter- 
lude, as she often did, and poured forth her passionate 
soul as Andromache at the tomb of Hector, etc., I question 

25 whether any Turk, of all that ever entered the paradise of 
opium-eaters, can have had half the pleasure I had. But, 
indeed, I honour the Barbarians too much by supposing 
them capable of any pleasures approaching to the intel- 
lectual ones of an Englishman. For music is an intellectual 

30 or a sensual pleasure, according to the temperament of him 
who hears it. And, by the by, with the exception of the 
fine extravaganza on that subject in ''Twelfth Night," I do 
not recollect more than one thing said adequately on the 
subject of music in all literature : it is a passage in the 



CONFESSIONS OF AN ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER 209 

"Religio Medici"' of Sir T. Brown; and, though chiefly 
remarkable for its sublimity, has also a philosophic value, 
inasmuch as it points to the true theory of musical effects. 
The mistake of most people is to suppose that it is by the 
ear they communicate with music, and, therefore, that they 5 
are purely passive to its effects. But this is not so : it is by 
the reaction of the mind upon the notices of the ear, (the 
matter coming by the senses, the form from the mind) that 
the pleasure is constructed : and therefore it is that people 
of equally good ear differ so much in this point from one 10 
another. Now opium, by greatly increasing the activity of 
the mind generally, increases, of necessity, that particular 
mode of its activity by which we are able to construct out 
of the raw material of organic sound an elaborate intel- 
lectual pleasure. But, says a friend, a succession of musical 15 
sounds is to me like a collection of Arabic characters : I 
can attach no ideas to them. Ideas ! my good sir ? there 
is no occasion for them : all that class of ideas which can 
be available in such a case has a language of representative 
feelings. But this is a subject foreign to my present pur- 20 
poses : it is sufficient to say, that a chorus, etc., of elaborate 
harmony, displayed before me, as in a piece of arras work, 
the whole of my past life — not as if recalled by an act of 
memory, but as if present and incarnated in the music : no 
longer painful to dwell upon : but the detail of its incidents 25 
removed, or blended in some hazy abstraction ; and its pas- 
sions exalted, spiritualised, and sublimed. All this was to 
be had for five shillings. And over and above the music 
of the stage and the orchestra, I had all around me, in the 
intervals of the performance, the music of the Italian Ian- 30 
guage talked by Italian women : for the gallery was usually 

1 1 have not the book at this moment to consult ; but I thmk the 
passage begins — " And even that tavern music, which makes one man 
merry, another mad, in me strikes a deep fit of devotion," etc. 



2IO SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

crowded with Italians : and I listened with a pleasure such 
as that with which Weld the traveller lay and listened, in 
Canada, to the sweet laughter of Indian women ; for the 
less you understand of a language the more sensible you 
5 are to the melody or harshness of its sounds : for such a 
purpose, therefore, it was an advantage to me that I was a 
poor Italian scholar, reading it but little, and not speaking 
it at all, nor understanding a tenth part of what I heard 
spoken. 

lo These were my Opera pleasures : but another pleasure I 
had which, as it could be had only on a Saturday night, 
occasionally struggled with my love of the Opera ; for, at 
that time, Tuesday and Saturday were the regular Opera 
nights. On this subject I am afraid I shall be rather 

15 obscure, but, I can assure the reader, not at all more so 
than Marinus in his life of Proclus, or many other biog- 
raphers and autobiographers of fair reputation. This 
pleasure, I have said, was to be had only on a Saturday 
night. What then was Saturday night to me more than 

20 any other night ? I had no labours that I rested from ; 
no wages to receive : what needed I to care for Saturday 
night, more than as it was a summons to hear Grassini? 
True, most logical reader : what you say is unanswerable. 
And yet so it was and is, that, whereas different men throw 

25 their feelings into different channels, and most are apt to 
show their interest in the concerns of the poor, chiefly by 
sympathy, expressed in some shape or other, with their 
distresses and sorrows, I, at that time, was disposed to 
express my interest by sympathising with their pleasures. 

30 The pains of poverty I had lately seen too much of ; more 
than I wished to remember : but the pleasures of the poor, 
their consolations of spirit, and their reposes from bodily 
toil, can never become oppressive to contemplate. Now 
Saturday night is the season for the chief, regular, and 



CONFESSIONS OF AN ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER 211 

periodic return of rest to the poor : in this point the most 
hostile sects unite, and acknowledge a common link of 
brotherhood : almost all Christendom rests from its labours. 
It is a rest introductory to another rest : and divided by a 
whole day and two nights from the renewal of toil. On 5 
this account I feel always, on a Saturday night, as though 
I also were released from some yoke of labour, had some 
wages to receive, and some luxury of repose to enjoy. 
For the sake, therefore, of witnessing, upon as large a 
scale as possible, a spectacle with which my sympathy was 10 
so entire, I used often, on Saturday nights, after I had 
taken opium, to wander forth, without much regarding the 
direction or the distance, to all the markets and other 
parts of London to which the poor resort on a Saturday 
night for laying out their wages. Many a family party, 15 
consisting of a man, his wife, and sometimes one or two 
of his children, have I listened to, as they stood con- 
sulting on their ways and means, or the strength of their 
exchequer, or the price of household articles. Gradually I 
became familiar with their wishes, their difficulties, and 20 
their opinions. Sometimes there might be heard murmurs 
of discontent : but far oftener expressions on the coun- 
tenance, or uttered in words, of patience, hope, and tran- 
quillity. And taken generally, I must say, that, in this 
point at least, the poor are far more philosophic than 25 
the rich — that they show a more ready and cheerful sub- 
mission to what they consider as irremediable evils, or 
irreparable losses. Whenever I saw occasion, or could do 
it without appearing to be intrusive, I joined their parties ; 
and gave my opinion upon the matter in discussion, which, 30 
if not always judicious, was always received indulgently. 
If wages were a little higher, or expected to be so, or the 
quartern loaf a little lower, or it was reported that onions 
and butter were expected to fall, I was glad : yet, if the 



212 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCEV 

contrary were true, I drew from opium some means of con- 
soling myself. For opium, like the bee, that extracts its 
materials indiscriminately from roses and from the soot of 
chimneys, can overrule all feelings into a compliance with 
5 the master key. Some of these rambles led me to great 
distances : for an opium-eater is too happy to observe 
the motion of time. And sometimes in my attempts to 
steer homewards upon nautical principles, by fixing my 
eye on the pole-star, and seeking ambitiously for a north- 

10 west passage, instead of circumnavigating all the capes 
and headlands I had doubled in my outward voyage, I 
came suddenly upon such knotty problems of alleys, such 
enigmatical entries, and such sphinx's riddles of streets 
without thoroughfares, as must, I conceive, baffle the 

15 audacity of porters, and confound the intellects of hackney- 
coachmen. I could almost have believed, at times, that I 
must be the first discoverer of some of these tei-rce incog- 
nitcE^ and doubted whether they had yet been laid down 
in the modern charts of London. For all this, however, I 

20 paid a heavy price in distant years, when the human face 
tyrannised over my dreams, and the perplexities of my 
steps in London came back and haunted my sleep with the 
feeling of perplexities moral or intellectual, that brought 
confusion to the reason, or anguish and remorse to the 

25 conscience. 

Thus I have shown that opium does not, of necessity, 
produce inactivity or torpor ; but that, on the contrary, it 
often led me into markets and theatres. Yet, in candour, 
I will admit that markets and theatres are not the appro- 

30 priate haunts of the opium-eater, when in the divinest state 
incident to his enjoyment. In that state, crowds become 
an oppression to him ; music even, too sensual and gross. 
He naturally seeks solitude and silence, as indispensable 
conditions of those trances and profoundest reveries which 



CONFESSIONS OF AN ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER 213 

are the crown or consummation of what opium can do for 
human nature. I, whose disease it was to meditate too much, 
and to observe too little, and who upon my first entrance 
at college was nearly falling into a deep melancholy 
from brooding too much on the sufferings which I had 5 
witnessed in London, was sufficiently aware of the tenden- 
cies of my own thoughts to do all I could to counteract 
them. — I was, indeed, like a person who, according to the 
old legend, had entered the cave of Trophonius : and the 
remedies I sought were to force myself into society, and to 10 
keep my understanding in continual activity upon matters 
of science. But for these remedies, I should certainly have 
become hypochondriacally melancholy. In after years, how- 
ever, when my cheerfulness was more fully re-established, I 
yielded to my natural inclination for a solitary life. And, 15 
at that time, I often fell into these reveries upon taking 
opium ; and more than once it has happened to me, on a 
summer night, when I have been at an open window, in a 
room from which I could overlook the sea at a mile below 
me, and could command a view of the great town of 20 
L[iverpool], at about the same distance, that I have sat, 
from sun-set to sun-rise, motionless, and without wishing 
to move. 

I shall be charged with mysticism, Behmenism, quietism, 
etc., but that shall not alarm me. SirH. Vane, the younger, 25 
was one of our wisest men : and let my readers see if he, 
in his philosophical works, be half as unmystical as I am. 
— I say, then, that it has often struck me that the scene 
itself was somewhat typical of what took place in such a 
reverie. The town of L[iverpool] represented the earth, 30 
with its sorrows and its graves left behind, yet not out of 
sight, nor wholly forgotten. The ocean, in everlasting but 
gentle agitation, and bjooded over by a dove-like calm, 
might not unfitly typify the mind and the mood which then 



2 14 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE V 

swayed it. For it seemed to me as if then first I stood at 
a distance, and aloof from the uproar of life , as if the 
tumult, the fever, and the strife, were suspended ; a respite 
granted from the secret burthens of the heart ; a sabbath 

5 of repose ; a resting from human labours. Here were the 
hopes which blossom in the paths of life, reconciled with 
the peace which is in the grave ; motions of the intellect 
as unwearied as the heavens, yet for all anxieties a halcyon 
calm : a tranquillity that seemed no product of inertia, but 

10 as if resulting from mighty and equal antagonisms ; infinite 
activities, infinite repose. 

Oh ! just, subtle, and mighty opium ! that to the hearts 
of poor and rich alike, for the wounds that will never heal, 
and for "the pangs that tempt the spirit to rebel," bring- 

15 est an assuaging balm; eloquent opium! that with thy 
potent rhetoric stealest away the purposes of wrath ; and 
to the guilty man for one night givest back the hopes of 
his youth, and hands washed pure from blood ; and to the 
proud man a brief oblivion for 

20 " Wrongs unredress'd and insults unavenged " ; 

that summonest to the chancery of dreams, for the tri- 
umphs of suffering innocence, false witnesses ; and con- 
foundest perjury ; and dost reverse the sentences of 
unrighteous judges : — thou buildest upon the bosom of 

25 darkness, out of the fantastic imagery of the brain, cities 
and temples beyond the art of Phidias and Praxiteles — 
beyond the splendour of Babylon and Hekatompylos : and 
"from the anarchy of dreaming sleep," callest into sunny 
light the faces of long-buried beauties, and the blessed 

30 household countenances, cleansed from the "dishonours 
of the grave." Thou only givest these gifts to man; and 
thou hast the keys of Paradise, oh, just, subtle, and mighty 
opium ! 



CONFESSIONS OF AN ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER 215 

Introduction to the Pains of Opium 

Courteous, and, I hope, indulgent reader — for all my 
readers must be indulgent ones, or else, I fear, I shall 
shock them too much to count on their courtesy — having 
accompanied me thus far, now let me request you to move 
onwards for about eight years ; that is to say, from 1804, 5. 
when I have said that my acquaintance with opium first 
began, to 18 12. The years of academic life are now over 
and gone — almost forgotten : — the student's cap no longer 
presses my temples ; if my cap exist at all, it presses those 
of some youthful scholar, I trust, as happy as myself, and 10 
as passionate a lover of knowledge. My gown is, by this 
time, I dare to say, in the same condition with many thou- 
sands of excellent books in the Bodleian, viz., diligently 
perused by certain studious moths and worms : or departed, 
however, which is all that I know of its fate, to that great 15 
reservoir of somcivhere, to which all the tea-cups, tea- 
caddies, tea-pots, tea-kettles, etc., have departed (not to 
speak of still frailer vessels, such as glasses, decanters, bed- 
makers, etc.) which occasional resemblances in the present 
generation of tea-cups, etc., remind me of having once 20 
possessed, but of whose departure and final fate I, in com- 
mon with most gownsmen of either university, could give, 
I suspect, but an obscure and conjectural history. The 
persecution of the chapel-bell, sounding its unwelcome 
summons to six o'clock matins, interrupts my slumbers no 25 
longer : the porter who rang it, upon whose beautiful nose 
(bronze, inlaid with copper) I wrote, in retaliation, so 
many Greek epigrams whilst I was dressing, is dead, and 
has ceased to disturb anybody: and I and many others 
who suffered much from his tintinnabulous propensities, 30 
have now agreed to overlook his errors, and have forgiven 
him. Even with the bell I am now in charity : it rings, I 



2i6 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

suppose, as formerly, thrice a day : and cruelly annoys, I 
doubt not, many worthy gentlemen, and disturbs their 
peace of mind : but as to me, in this year 1812, I regard 
its treacherous voice no longer — treacherous, I call it, for, 
5 by some refinement of malice, it spoke in as sweet and 
silvery tones as if it had been inviting one to a party — its 
tones have no longer, indeed, power to reach me, let the 
wind sit as favourable as the malice of the bell itself could 
wish : for I am two hundred and fifty miles away from it, and 

10 buried in the depth of mountains. And what am I doing 
amongst the mountains ? Taking opium. Yes, but what 
else ? Why, reader, in 181 2, the year we are now arrived at, 
as well as for some years previous, I have been chiefly study- 
ing German metaphysics, in the writings of Kant, Fichte, 

15 Schelling, etc. And how, and in what manner, do I live ? 
in short, what class or description of men do I belong to ? 
I am at this period, viz., in 181 2, living in a cottage; and 
with a single female servant {Jioni soit qui mal y pense), 
who, amongst my neighbours, passes by the name of my 

20 "housekeeper." And, as a scholar and a man of learned 
education, and in that sense a gentleman, I may presume 
to class myself as an unworthy member of that indefi- 
nite body called gentleinen. Partly on the ground I have 
assigned, perhaps ; partly because, from my having no 

25 visible calling or business, it is rightly judged that I must 
be living on my private fortune ; I am so classed by my 
neighbours : and, by the courtesy of modern England, I 
am usually addressed on letters, etc., esquire^ though hav- 
ing, I fear, in the rigorous construction of heralds, but 

30 slender pretensions to that distinguished honour : yes, in 
popular estimation, I am X. Y. Z., esquire, but not Justice 
of the Peace, nor Gustos Rotulorum. Am I married ? 
Not yet. And I still take opium ? On Saturday nights. 
And, perhaps, have taken it unblushingly ever since " the 



CONFESSIONS OF AN ENGLISH OPIUM-EA TER 2 i 7 

rainy Sunday," and "the stately Pantheon," and "the 
beatific druggist" of 1804? — Even so. And how do I 
find my health after all this opium-eating ? in short, how 
do I do ? Why, pretty well, I thank you, reader : in the 
phrase of ladies in the straw, "as well as can be expected." 5 
In fact, if I dared to say the real and simple truth, though, 
to satisfy the theories of medical men, I ought to be ill, I 
never was better in my life than in the spring of 181 2 ; 
and I hope sincerely, that the quantity of claret, port, or 
"particular Madeira," which, in all probability, you, good 10 
reader, have taken, and design to take, for every term of 
eight years, during your natural life, may as little disorder 
your health as mine was disordered by the opium I had 
taken for the eight years between 1804 and 1812. Hence 
you may see again the danger of taking any medical advice 15 
from "Anastasius "; in divinity, for aught I know, or law, he 
may be a safe counsellor ; but not in medicine. No : it is 
far better to consult Dr. Buchan ; as I did : for I never 
forgot that worthy man's excellent suggestion : and I was 
"particularly careful not to take above five-and-twenty 20 
ounces of laudanum." To this moderation and temperate 
use of the article, I may ascribe it, I suppose, that as yet, 
at least, (/>., in 18 12) I am ignorant and unsuspicious of 
the avenging terrors which opium has in store for those 
who abuse its lenity. At the same time, it must not be 25 
forgotten, that hitherto I have been only a dilettante eater 
of opium : eight years' practice even, with the single pre- 
caution of allowing sufficient intervals between every indul- 
gence, has not been sufficient to make opium necessary to 
me as an article of daily diet. But now comes a different 30 
era. Move on, if you please, reader, to 18 13. In the 
summer of the year we have just quitted, I had suffered 
much in bodily health from distress of mind connected 
with a very melancholy event. This event, being no ways 



2i8 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

related to the subject now before me, further than through 
the bodily illness which it produced, I need not more par- 
ticularly notice. Whether this illness of 1812 had any share 
in that of 1813, I know not : but so it was, that in the latter 
5 year I was attacked by a most appalling irritation of the 
stomach, in all respects the same as that which had caused 
me so much suffering in youth, and accompanied by a 
revival of all the old dreams. This is the point of my 
narrative on which, as respects my own self-justification, the 

10 whole of what follows may be said to hinge. And here I 
find myself in a perplexing dilemma : — Either, on the one 
hand, I must exhaust the reader's patience, by such a 
detail of my malady, and of my struggles with it, as might 
suffice to establish the fact of my inability to wrestle any 

15 longer with irritation and constant suffering: or, on the 
other hand, by passing lightly over this critical part of my 
story, I must forego the benefit of a stronger impression 
left on the mind of the reader, and must lay myself open 
to the misconstruction of having slipped by the easy and 

20 gradual steps of self-indulging persons, from the first to 
the final stage of opium-eating, a misconstruction to which 
there will be a lurking predisposition in most readers, from 
my previous acknowledgments. This is the dilemma : the 
first horn of which would be sufficient to toss and gore any 

25 column of patient readers, though drawn up sixteen deep 
and constantly relieved by fresh men : consequently that is 
not to be thought of. It remains then, that I postulate so 
much as is necessary for my purpose. And let me take as 
full credit for what I postulate as if I had demonstrated it, 

30 good reader, at the expense of your patience and my own. 
Be not so ungenerous as to let me suffer in your good 
opinion through my own forbearance and regard for your 
comfort. No : believe all that I ask of you, viz., that I 
could resist no longer ; believe it liberally, and as an act 



CONFESSIONS OF AN ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER 219 

of grace : or else in mere prudence : for, if not, then in the 
next edition of my Opium Confessions revised and enlarged, 
I will make you believe and tremble: and a force d^enmiyer, 
by mere dint of pandiculation I will terrify all readers of 
mine from ever again questioning any postulate that I shall 5 
think fit to make. 

This then, let me repeat, I postulate — that, at the time 
I began to take opium daily, I could not have done other- 
wise. Whether, indeed, afterwards I might not have suc- 
ceeded in breaking off the habit, even when it seemed to 10 
me that all efforts would be unavailing, and whether many 
of the innumerable efforts which I did make might not have 
been carried much further, and my gradual re-conquests of 
ground lost might not have been followed up much more 
energetically — these are questions which I must decline. 15 
Perhaps I might make out a case of palliation ; but, shall I 
speak ingenuously.'' I confess it, as a besetting infirmity 
of mine, that I am too much of an Eudaemonist : I hanker 
too much after a state of happiness, both for myself and 
others : I cannot face misery, whether my own or not, with 20 
an eye of sufficient firmness : and am little capable of 
encountering present pain for the sake of any reversionary 
benefit. On some other matters, I can agree with the gen- 
tlemen in the cotton-trade ^ at Manchester in affecting the 
Stoic philosophy: but not in this. Here I take the liberty 25 
of an Eclectic philosopher, and I look out for some courte- 
ous and considerate sect that will condescend more to the 
infirm condition of an opium-eater; that are 'sweet men,' 
as Chaucer says, *to give absolution,' and will show some 

1 A handsome news-room, of which I was very poHtely made free in 
passing through Manchester by several gentlemen of that place, is 
called, I think, The Porch ; whence I, who am a stranger in Manchester, 
inferred that the subscribers meant to profess themselves followers of 
Zeno. But I have been since assured that this is. a mistake. 



2 20 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCEY 

conscience in the penances they inflict, and the efforts of 
abstinence they exact from poor sinners like myself. An 
inhuman moralist I can no more endure in my nervous 
state than opium that has not been boiled. At any rate, 

5 he, who summons me to send out a large freight of self- 
denial and mortification upon any cruising voyage of moral 
improvement, must make it clear to my understanding that 
the concern is a hopeful one. At my time of life (six and 
thirty years of age) it cannot be supposed that I have much 

lo energy to spare: in fact, I find it all little enough for the 
intellectual labours I have on my hands : and, therefore, let 
no man expect to frighten me by a few hard words into embark- 
ing any part of it upon desperate adventures of morality. 
Whether desperate or not, however, the issue of the 

15 struggle in 18 13 was what I have mentioned; and from 
this date, the reader is to consider me as a regular and con- 
firmed opium-eater, of whom to ask whether on any partic- 
ular day he had or had not taken opium, would be to ask 
whether his lungs had performed respiration, or the heart 

20 fulfilled its functions. — You understand now, reader, what 
I am : and you are by this time aware, that no old gentle- 
man, "with a snow-white beard," will have any chance of 
persuading me to surrender " the little golden receptacle 
of the pernicious drug." No : I give notice to all, whether 

25 moralists or surgeons, that, whatever be their pretensions 
and skill in their respective lines of practice, they must not 
hope for any countenance from me, if they think to begin 
by any savage proposition for a Lent or Ramadan of absti- 
nence from opium. This then being all fully understood 

30 between us, we shall in future sail before the wind. Now 
then, reader, from 18 13, where all this time we have been 
sitting down and loitering — rise up, if you please, and 
walk forward about three years more. Now draw up the 
curtain, and you shall see me in a new character. 



CONFESSIONS OF AN ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER 221 

If any man, poor or rich, were to say that he would tell 
us what had been the happiest day in his life, and the why, 
and the wherefore, I suppose that we should all cry out — 
Hear him ! Hear him ! — As to the happiest day^ that must 
be very difficult for any wise man to name : because any 5 
event, that could occupy so distinguished a place in a man's 
retrospect of his life, or be entitled to have shed a special 
felicity on any one day, ought to be of such an endur- 
ing character, as that, accidents apart, it should have 
continued to shed the same felicity, or one not distin- 10 
guishably less, on many years together. To the happiest 
lustr 11771^ however, or even to the happiest year^ it may be 
allowed to any man to point without discountenance from 
wisdom. This year, in my case, reader, was the one which 
we have now reached; though it stood, I confess, as a 15 
parenthesis between years of a gloomier character. It was a 
year of brilliant water, to speak after the manner of jewel- 
lers, set as it were, and insulated, in the gloom and cloudy 
melancholy of opium. Strange as it may sound, I had a 
little before this time descended suddenly, and without any 20 
considerable effort, from 320 grains of opium (/>., eight ^ 
thousand drops of laudanum) per day, to forty grains, or 
one -eighth part. Instantaneously, and as if by magic, 
the cloud of profoundest melancholy which rested upon 
my brain, like some black vapours that I have seen roll 25 
away from the summits of mountains, drew off in one 
day (vvxOrj^iepov) ; passed off with its murky banners as 

1 1 here reckon twenty-five drops of laudanum as equivalent to one 
grain of opium, which, I believe, is the common estimate. However, 
as both may be considered variable quantities (the crude opium varying 
much in strength, and the tincture still more), I suppose that no infini- 
tesimal accuracy can be had in such a calculation. Tea-spoons vary as 
much in size as opium in strength. Small ones hold about 100 drops ; 
so that 8000 drops are about eighty times a tea-spoonful. The reader 
sees how much I kept within Dr. Buchan's indulgent allowance. 



222 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

simultaneously as a ship that has been stranded, and is 
floated off by a spring tide — 

" That moveth altogether, if it move at all." 

Now, then, I was again happy: I now took only looo 
5 drops of laudanum per day : and what was that ? A latter 
spring had come to close up the season of youth : my brain 
performed its functions as healthily as ever before : I read 
Kant again ; and again I understood him, or fancied that 
I did. Again my feelings of pleasure expanded them- 

lo selves to all around me : and if any man from Oxford or 
Cambridge, or from neither, had been announced to me in 
my unpretending cottage, I should have welcomed him with 
as sumptuous a reception as so poor a man could offer. 
Whatever else was wanting to a wise man's happiness, — 

15 of laudanum I would have given him as much as he wished, 
and in a golden cup. And, by the way, now that I speak 
of giving laudanum away, I remember, about this time, a 
little incident, which I mention, because, trifling as it was, 
the reader will soon meet it again in my dreams, which it 

20 influenced more fearfully than could be imagined. One 
day a Malay knocked at my door. What business a Malay 
could have to transact amongst English mountains, I can- 
not conjecture: but possibly he was on his road to a 
seaport about forty miles distant. 

25 The servant who opened the door to him was a young 
girl born and bred amongst the mountains, who had never 
seen an Asiatic dress of any sort : his turban, therefore, 
confounded her not a little : and, as it turned out that his 
attainments in English were exactly of the same extent as 

30 hers in the Malay, there seemed to be an impassable gulf 
fixed between all communication of ideas, if either party 
had happened to possess any. In this dilemma, the girl, 
recollecting the reputed learning of her master, and 



CONFESSIONS OF AN ENGLISH OPIUM-EA TER 



223 



doubtless giving me credit for a knowledge of all the lan- 
guages of the earth, besides, perhaps, a few of the lunar ones, 
came and gave me to understand that there was a sort 
of demon below, whom she clearly imagined that my art 
could exorcise from the house. I did not immediately go 5 
down : but, when I did, the group which presented itself, 
arranged as it was by accident, though not very elaborate, 
took hold of my fancy and my eye in a way that none of 
the statuesque attitudes exhibited in the ballets at the 
Opera-house, though so ostentatiously complex, had ever 10 
done. In a cottage kitchen, but panelled on the wall with 
dark wood that from age and rubbing resembled oak, and 
looking more like a rustic hall of entrance than a kitchen, 
stood the Malay — his turban and loose trousers of dingy 
white relieved upon the dark panelling : he had placed him- 15 
self nearer to the girl than she seemed to relish ; though 
her native spirit of mountain intrepidity contended with 
the feeling of simple awe which her countenance expressed 
as she gazed upon the tiger-cat before her. And a more 
striking picture there could not be imagined, than the beau- 20 
tiful English face of the girl, and its exquisite fairness, to- 
gether with her erect and independent attitude, contrasted 
with the sallow and bilious skin of the Malay, enamelled or 
veneered with mahogany, by marine air, his small, fierce, 
restless eyes, thin lips, slavish gestures and adorations. 25 
Half-hidden by the ferocious looking Malay was a little 
child from a neighbouring cottage who had crept in after 
him, and was now in the act of reverting its head, and gaz- 
ing upwards at the turban and the fiery eyes beneath it, 
whilst with one hand he caught at the dress of the young 30 
woman for protection. My knowledge of the Oriental 
tongues is not remarkably extensive, being indeed confined 
to two words — the Arabic word for barley, and the 
Turkish for opium (madjoon), which I have learnt from 



2 24 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

Anastasius. And, as I had neither a Malay dictionary, nor 
even Adelung's "Mithridates," which might have helped me 
to a few words, I addressed him in some lines from the 
Iliad ; considering that, of such languages as I possessed, 
5 Greek, in point of longitude, came geographically nearest 
to an Oriental one. He worshipped me in a most devout 
manner, and replied in what I suppose was Malay. In 
this way I saved my reputation with my neighbours : for 
the Malay had no means of betraying the secret. He lay 

lo down upon the floor for about an hour, and then pursued 
his journey. On his departure, I presented him with a 
piece of opium. To him, as an Orientalist, I concluded 
that opium must be familiar : and the expression of his 
face convinced me that it was. Nevertheless, I was struck 

15 with some little consternation when I saw him suddenly 
raise his hand to his mouth, and, in the schoolboy phrase, 
bolt the whole, divided into three pieces, at one mouthful. 
The quantity was enough to kill three dragoons and their 
horses : and I felt some alarm for the poor creature : but 

20 what could be done ? I had given him the opium in com- 
passion for his solitary life, on recollecting that if he had 
travelled on foot from London it must be nearly three 
weeks since he could have exchanged a thought with any 
human being. I could not think of violating the laws of 

25 hospitality by having him seized and drenched with an 
emetic, and thus frightening him into a notion that we 
were going to sacrifice him to some English idol. No : 
there was clearly no help for it : — he took his leave: and 
for some days I felt anxious : but as I never heard of any 

30 Malay being found dead, I became convinced that he was 
used^ to opium : and that I must have done him the service 

1 This, however, is not a necessary conclusion ; the varieties of effect 
produced by opium on different constitutions are infinite. A London 
Magistrate (Harriott's "Struggles through Life," vol. iii, p. 391, Third 



f 



CONFESSIONS OF AN ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER 225 

I designed, by giving him one night of respite from the 
pains of wandering. 

This incident I have digressed to mention, because this 
Malay, partly from the picturesque exhibition he assisted to 
frame, partly from the anxiety I connected with his image 5 
for some days, fastened afterwards upon my dreams, and 
brought other Malays with him worse than himself, that 
ran "a-muck" ^ at me, and led me into a world of troubles. 
— But to quit this episode, and to return to my intercalary 
year of happiness. I have said already, that on a subject 10 
so important to us all as happiness, we should listen with 
pleasure to any man's experience or experiments, even 
though he were but a plough-boy, who cannot be supposed 
to have ploughed very deep into such an intractable soil as 
that of human pains and pleasures, or to have conducted 15 
his researches upon any very enlightened principles. But 
I, who have taken happiness, both in a solid and a liquid 
shape, both boiled and unboiled, both East India and 
Turkey — who have conducted my experiments upon this 
interesting subject with a sort of galvanic battery — and 20 
have, for the general benefit of the world, inoculated myself, 
as it were, with the poison of 8000 drops of laudanum per 
day (just for the same reason as a French surgeon inocu- 
lated himself lately with cancer — an English one, twenty 

Edition) has recorded that, on the first occasion of his trying laudanum 
for the gout, he took fo7'ty drops, the next night sixty, and on the fifth 
night eighty, without any effect whatever ; and this at an advanced 
age. I have an anecdote from a country surgeon, however, which sinks 
Mr. Harriott's case into a trifle; and in my projected medical treatise 
on opium, which I will publish, provided the College of Surgeons will 
pay me for enlightening their benighted understandings upon this subject, 
I will relate it ; but it is far too good a story to be published gratis. 

1 See the common accounts in any Eastern traveller or voyager of 
the frantic excesses committed by Malays who have taken opium, or 
are reduced to desperation by ill luck at gambling. 



2 26 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

years ago, with plague — and a third, I know not of what 
nation, with hydrophobia), — /, it will be admitted, must 
surely know what happiness is, if anybody does. And, 
therefore, I will here lay down an analysis of happiness ; 
5 and as the most interesting mode of communicating it, I 
will give it, not didactically, but wrapt up and involved 
in a picture of one evening, as I spent every evening 
during the intercalary year when laudanum, though taken 
daily, was to me no more than the elixir of pleasure. This 

10 done, I shall quit the subject of happiness altogether, and 
pass to a very different one — the pains of opium. 

Let there be a cottage, standing in a valley, eighteen 
miles from any town — no spacious valley, but about two 
miles long, by three-quarters of a mile in average width ; 

15 the benefit of which provision is that all the families resi- 
dent within its circuit will compose, as it were, one larger 
household personally familiar to your eye, and more or less 
interesting to your affections. Let the mountains be real 
mountains, between three and four thousand feet high ; 

20 and the cottage, a real cottage ; not, as a witty author has 
it, " a cottage with a double coach-house." : let it be, in fact 
— for I must abide by the actual scene — a white cottage, 
embowered with flowering shrubs, so chosen as to unfold a 
succession of flowers upon the walls, and clustering round 

25 the windows through all the months of spring, summer, and 
autumn — beginning, in fact, with May roses, and ending 
with jasmine. Let it, however, 7iot be spring, nor summer, 
nor autumn — but winter, in his sternest shape. This is a 
most important point in the science of happiness. And I 

30 am surprised to see people overlook it, and think it matter 
of congratulation that winter is going ; or, if coming, is 
not likely to be a severe one. On the contrary, I put up a 
petition annually for as much snow, hail, frost, or storm, 
of one kind or other, as the skies can possibly afford us. 



CONFESSIONS OF AN ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER 227 

Surely everybody is aware of the divine pleasures which 
attend a winter fire-side : candles at four o'clock, warm 
hearth-rugs, tea, a fair tea-maker, shutters closed, curtains 
flowing in ample draperies on the floor, whilst the wind and 
rain are raging audibly without, 5 

"And at the doors and windows seemed to call, 
As heav'n and earth they would together mail ; 
Yet the least entrance find they none at all ; 
Whence sweeter grows our rest secure in massy hall." 

Castle of Indolence. 

All these are items in the description of a winter evening, 10 
which must surely be familiar to everybody born in a high 
latitude. And it is evident, that most of these delicacies, 
like ice-cream, require a very low temperature of the atmos- 
phere to produce them : they are fruits which cannot be 
ripened without weather stormy or inclement, in some way 15 
or other. I am not '■'■ particulars''^ as people say, whether it 
be snow, or black frost, or wind so strong, that (as Mr. 
[Anti-Slavery Clarkson] says) "you may lean your back 
against it like a post." I can put up even with rain, pro- 
vided it rains cats and dogs : but something of the sort I 20 
must have : and, if I have it not, I think myself in a manner 
ill-used : for why am I called on to pay so heavily for winter, 
in coals, and candles, and various privations that will occur 
even to gentlemen, if I am not to have the article good 
of its kind ? No : a Canadian winter for my money : or a 25 
Russian one, where every man is but a co-proprietor with 
the north wind in the fee-simple of his own ears. Indeed, 
so great an epicure am I in this matter, that I cannot relish 
a winter night fully if it be much past St. Thomas's day, 
and have degenerated into disgusting tendencies to vernal 30 
appearances : no : it must be divided by a thick wall of 
dark nights from all return of light and sunshine. — From 



2 28 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

the latter weeks of October to Christmas-eve, therefore, is 
the period during which happiness is in season, which, in 
my judgment, enters the room with the tea-tray : for tea, 
though ridiculed by those who are naturally of coarse nerves, 

5 or are become so from wine-drinking, and are not suscep- 
tible of influence from so refined a stimulant, will always 
be the favourite beverage of the intellectual : and, for my 
part, I would have joined Dr. Johnson in a bellum inte?-- 
necimwi against Jonas Hanway, or any other impious per- 

10 son who should presume to disparage it. — But here, to save 
myself the trouble of too much verbal description, I will 
introduce a painter ; and give him directions for the rest 
of the picture. Painters do not like white cottages, unless 
a good deal weather-stained : but as the reader now under- 

15 stands that it is a winter night, his services will not be 
required, except for the inside of the house. 

Paint me, then, a room seventeen feet by twelve, and 
not more than seven and a half feet high. This, reader, is 
somewhat ambitiously styled, in my family, the drawing- 

20 room: but, being contrived "a double debt to pay," it is 
also, and more justly, termed the library ; for it happens 
that books are the only article of property in which I am 
richer than my neighbours. Of these, I have about five 
thousand, collected gradually since my eighteenth year. 

25 Therefore, painter, put as many as you can into this room. 
Make it populous with books : and, furthermore, paint me 
a good fire ; and furniture, plain and modest, befitting the 
unpretending cottage of a scholar. And, near the fire, paint 
me a tea-table ; and, as it is clear that no creature can come 

30 to see one such a stormy night, place only two cups and 
saucers on the tea-tray : and, if you know how to paint such 
a thing symbolically, or otherwise, paint me an eternal tea- 
pot — eternal a parte ante, and a parte post ; for I usually 
drink tea from eight o'clock at night to four o'clock in the 



COiVFESS/OA'S OF AN ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER 229 

morning. And, as it is very unpleasant to make tea, or to 
pour it out for oneself, paint me a lovely young woman, 
sitting at the table. Paint her arms like Aurora's, and her 
smiles like Hebe's: — But no, dear M[argaret], not even 
in jest let me insinuate that thy power to illuminate my 5 
cottage rests upon a tenure so perishable as mere personal 
beauty ; or that the witchcraft of angelic smiles lies within 
the empire of any earthly pencil. Pass, then, my good 
painter, to something more within its power : and the next 
article brought forward should naturally be myself — a pic- 10 
ture of the Opium-eater with his " little golden receptacle 
of the pernicious drug," lying beside him on the table. As 
to the opium, I have no objection to see a picture of that^ 
though I would rather see the original : you may paint it, 
if you choose ; but T apprise you, that no " little " receptacle 15 
would, even in 18 16, answer my purpose, who was at a dis- 
tance from the " stately Pantheon," and all druggists (mortal 
or otherwise). No : you may as well paint the real recep- 
tacle, which was not of gold, but of glass, and as much like 
a wine-decanter as possible. Into this you may put a quart 20 
of ruby-coloured laudanum: that, and a book of German 
metaphysics placed by its side, will sufficiently attest my 
being in the neighbourhood ; but, as to myself, — there I 
demur. I admit that, naturally, I ought to occupy the fore- 
ground of the picture ; that being the hero of the piece, or 25 
(if you choose) the criminal at the bar, my body should be 
had into court. This seems reasonable : but why should I 
confess, on this point, to a painter ? or why confess at all ? 
If the public (into whose private ear I am confidentially 
whispering my confessions, and not into any painter's) should 30 
chance to have framed some agreeable picture for itself, of 
the Opium-eater's exterior, — should have ascribed to him, 
romantically, an elegant person, or a handsome face, why 
should I barbarously tear from it so pleasing a delusion — 



230 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

pleasing both to the public and to me ? No : paint me, if 
at all, according to your own fancy ; and, as a painter's 
fancy should teem with beautiful creations, I cannot fail, 
in that way, to be a gainer. And now, reader, we have run 
S through all the ten categories of my condition, as it stood 
about 18 1 6-1 7 : up to the middle of which latter year I 
judge myself to have been a happy man : and the elements 
of that happiness I have endeavoured to place before you, 
in the above sketch of the interior of a scholar's library, in 

10 a cottage among the mountains, on a stormy winter evening. 

But now farewell — a long farewell to happiness — winter 

or summer ! farewell to smiles and laughter ! farewell to 

peace of mind ! farewell to hope and to tranquil dreams, 

and to the blessed consolations of sleep ! for more than 

15 three years and a half I am summoned away from these: 
I am now arrived at an Iliad of woes : for I have now to 
record 



The Pains of Opium 

as when some great painter dips 



His pencil in the gloom of earthquake and eclipse." 

Shelley s Revolt 0/ Islam. 

20 Readers, who have thus far accompanied me, I must 
request your attention to a brief explanatory note on three 
points : 

I. For several reasons, I have not been able to compose 
the notes for this part of my narrative into any regular 

25 and connected shape. I give the notes disjointed as I find 
them, or have now drawn them up from memory. Some 
of them point to their own date ; some I have dated ; and 
some are undated. Whenever it could answer my purpose 
to transplant them from the natural or chronological order, 

30 I have not scrupled to do so. Sometimes I speak in the 



CONFESSIOiVS OF AN ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER 231 

present, sometimes in the past tense. Few of the notes, 
perhaps, were written exactly at the period of time to 
which they relate ; but this can little affect their accuracy ; 
as the impressions were such that they can never fade from 
my mind. Much has been omitted. I could not, without 5 
effort, constrain myself to the task of either recalling, or 
constructing into a regular narrative, the whole burthen of 
horrors which lies upon my brain. This feeling partly I 
plead in excuse, and partly that I am now in London, and 
am a helpless sort of person, who cannot even arrange his 10 
own papers without assistance ; and I am separated from 
the hands which are wont to perform for me the offices of 
an amanuensis. 

2. You will think, perhaps, that I am too confidential 
and communicative of my own private history. It may be 15 
so. But my way of writing is rather to think aloud, and 
follow my own humours, than much to consider who is 
listening to me ; and, if I stop to consider what is proper 

to be said to this or that person, I shall soon come to doubt 
whether any part at all is proper. The fact is, I place 20 
myself at a distance of fifteen or twenty years ahead of 
this time, and suppose myself writing to those who will be 
interested about me hereafter ; and wishing to have some 
record of a time, the entire history of which no one can 
know but myself, I do it as fully as I am able with the 25 
efforts I am now capable of making, because I know not 
whether I can ever find time to do it again. 

3. It will occur to you often to ask, why did I not release 
myself from the horrors of opium, by leaving it off, or 
diminishing it? To this I must answer briefly: it might 30 
be supposed that I yielded to the fascinations of opium too 
easily ; it cannot be supposed that any man can be charmed 
by its terrors. The reader may be sure, therefore, that I 
made attempts innumerable to reduce the quantity. I add, 



232 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

that those who witnessed the agonies of those attempts, 
and not myself, were the first to beg me to desist. But 
could not I have reduced it a drop a day, or by adding 
water, have bisected or trisected a drop ? A thousand 

5 drops bisected would thus have taken nearly six years to 
reduce ; and that way would certainly not have answered. 
But this is a common mistake of those who know nothing 
of opium experimentally ; I appeal to those who do, 
whether it is not always found that down to a certain 

10 point it can be reduced with ease and even pleasure, but 
that, after that point, further reduction causes intense 
suffering. Yes, say many thoughtless persons, who know 
not what they are talking of, you will suffer a little low 
spirits and dejection for a few days. I answer, no ; there 

15 is nothing like low spirits; on the contrary, the mere 
animal spirits are uncommonly raised : the pulse is 
improved : the health is better. It is not there that the 
suffering lies. It has no resemblance to the sufferings 
caused by renouncing wine. It is a state of unutterable 

20 irritation of stomach (which surely is not much like 

, dejection), accompanied by intense perspirations, and feel- 

\ ings such as I shall not attempt to describe without more 
space at my command. 

I shall now enter /// viedias res^ and shall anticipate, 

25 from a time when my opium pains might be said to be at 
their acme, an account of their palsying effects on the 
intellectual faculties. 

My studies have now been long interrupted. I cannot 
read to myself with any pleasure, hardly with a moment's 
30 endurance. Yet I read aloud sometimes for the pleasure 
of others; because reading is an accomplishment of mine; 
and, in the slang use of the word acconipIisJwiejit as a super- 
ficial and ornamental attainment, almost the only one I 



CONFESSIONS OF AN KNCLISH OPIUM-EATER 233 

possess: and formerly, if 1 had any vanity at all connected 
with any endowment or attainment of mine, it was with 
this ; for I had observed that no accomplishment was so rare. 
Players are the worst readers of all : John Kemble reads 
vilely : and Mrs. Siddons, who is so celebrated, can read 5 
nothing well but dramatic compositions : Milton she can- 
not read sufferably. People in general either read poetry 
without any passion at all, or else overstep the modesty of 
nature, and read not like scholars. Of late, if I have felt 
moved by anything in books, it has been by the grand 10 
lamentations of Samson Agonistes, or the great harmonies 
of the Satanic speeches in "Paradise Regained," when 
read aloud by myself. A young lady sometimes comes and 
drinks tea with us: at her request and M[argaret]'s I now 
and then read Wordsworth's poems to them. (Words- 15 
worth, by the by, is the only poet I ever met who could 
read his own verses: often indeed he reads admirably.) 

For nearly two years I believe that I read no book but 
one : and I owe it to the author, in discharge of a great 
debt of gratitude, to mention what that was. The sublimer 20 
and more passionate poets 1 still read, as I have said, by 
snatches, and occasionally. But my proper vocation, as I 
well knew, was the exercise of the analytic understanding. 
Now, for the most part, analytic studies are continuous, 
and not to be pursued by fits and starts, or fragmentary 25 
efforts. Mathematics, for instance, intellectual philosophy, 
etc., were all become insupportable to me ; and 1 shrunk 
from them with a sense of powerless and infantine feeble- 
ness that gave me an anguish the greater from remember- 
ing the time when I grappled with them to my own hourly 30 
delight ; and for this further reason, because I had devoted 
the labour of my whole life, and had dedicated my intellect, 
blossoms and fruits, to the slow and elaborate toil of con- 
structing one single work, to which I had presumed to give 



234 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

the title of an unfinished work of Spinoza's ; viz., De emen- 
datione humani intellectus. This was now lying locked up, 
as by frost, like any Spanish bridge or aqueduct, begun 
upon too great a scale for the resources of the architect ; 

5 and, instead of surviving me as a monument of wishes at 
least, and aspirations, and a life of labour dedicated to 
the exaltation of human nature in that way in which God 
had best fitted me to promote so great an object, it was 
likely to stand a memorial to my children of hopes defeated, 

10 of baffled efforts, of materials uselessly accumulated, of 
foundations laid that were never to support a super- 
structure, — of the grief and the ruin of the architect. In 
this state of imbecility, I had, for amusement, turned my 
attention to political economy ; my understanding, which 

15 formerly had been as active and restless as a hyena, could 
not, I suppose (so long as I lived at all), sink into utter 
lethargy ; and political economy offers this advantage to a 
person in my state, that though it is eminently an organic 
science (no part, that is to say, but what acts on the whole, 

20 as the whole again reacts on each part), yet the several 
parts may be detached and contemplated singly. Great 
as was the prostration of my powers at this time, yet I 
could not forget my knowledge ; and my understanding 
had been for too many years intimate with severe thinkers, 

25 with logic, and the great masters of knowledge, not to be 
aware of the utter feebleness of the main herd of modern 
economists. I had been led in 181 1 to look into loads of 
books and pamphlets on many branches of economy ; and, 
at my desire, M[argaret] sometimes read to me chapters 

30 from more recent works, or parts of parliamentary debates. 
I saw that these were generally the very dregs and rinsings 
of the human intellect : and that any man of sound head, 
and practised in wielding logic with a scholastic adroitness, 
might take up the whole academy of modern economists. 



CONFESSIONS OF AN ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER 235 

and throttle them between heaven and earth with his finger 
and thumb, or bray their fungus heads to powder with a 
lady's fan. At length, in 18 19, a friend in Edinburgh sent 
me down Mr. Ricardo's book : and recurring to my own 
prophetic anticipation of the advent of some legislator for 5 
this science, I said, before I had finished the first chapter, 
<'Thou art the man ! " Wonder and curiosity were emotions 
that had long been dead in me. Yet I wondered once 
more : I wondered at myself that I could once again be 
stimulated to the effort of reading : and much more I 10 
wondered at the book. Had this profound work been 
really written in England during the nineteenth century? 
Was it possible ? I supposed thinking ^ had been extinct in 
England. Could it be that an Englishman, and he not in 
academic bowers, but oppressed by mercantile and sena- 15 
torial cares, had accomplished what all the universities of 
Europe, and a century of thought, had failed even to 
advance by one hair's breadth ? All other writers had 
been crushed and overlaid by the enormous weight of facts 
and documents ; Mr. Ricardo had deduced, a priori^ from 20 
the understanding itself, laws which first gave a ray of light 
into the unwieldy chaos of materials, and had constructed 
what had been but a collection of tentative discussions into 
a science of regular proportions, now first standing on an 
eternal basis. 25 

Thus did one single work of a profound understanding 
avail to give me a pleasure and an activity which I had not 

1 The reader must remember what I here mean by thinkhig ; because 
else this would be a very presumptuous expression. England, of late, 
has been rich to excess in fine thinkers, in the departments of creative 
and combining thought ; but there is a sad dearth of masculine thinkers 
in any analytic path. A Scotchman of eminent name has lately 
told us, that he is obliged to quit even mathematics for want of 
encouragement. 



.236 SELECTIONS EROM DE QUINCE Y 

known for years : — it roused me even to write, or, at least, 
to dictate what M[argaret] wrote for me. It seemed to 
me that some important truths had escaped even "the 
inevitable eye " of Mr. Ricardo : and, as these were, for 
5 the most part, of such a nature that I could express or 
illustrate them more briefly and elegantly by algebraic 
symbols than in the usual clumsy and loitering diction of 
economists, the whole would not have filled a pocket-book; 
and being so brief, with M[argaret] for my amanuensis, 

10 even at this time, incapable as I was of all general exertion, 
I drew up my "Prolegomena to all Future Systems of 
Political Economy." I hope it will not be found redolent 
of opium; though, indeed, to most people, the subject itself 
is a sufficient opiate. 

15 This exertion, however, was but a temporary flash; as 
the sequel showed — for I designed to publish my work : 
arrangements were made at a provincial press, about eighteen 
miles distant, for printing it. An additional compositor 
was retained, for some days, on this account. The work 

20 was even twice advertised : and I was, in a manner, 
pledged to the fulfilment of my intention. But I had a 
preface to write; and a dedication, which I wished to make 
a splendid one, to Mr. Ricardo. I found myself quite 
unable to accomplish all this. The arrangements were 

25 countermanded : the compositor dismissed : and my "Pro- 
legomena " rested peacefully by the side of its elder and 
more dignified brother. 

I have thus described and illustrated my intellectual 
torpor, in terms that apply, more or less, to every part of 

30 the four years during which I was under the Circean spells 
of opium. But for misery and suffering, I might, indeed, 
be said to have existed in a dormant state. I seldom could 
prevail on myself to write a letter ; an answer of a few 
words, to any that I received, was the utmost that I could 



CONFESSIONS OF AN ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER 237 ■ 

accomplish ; and often that not until the letter had lain 
weeks, or even months, on my writing table. Without the 
aid of M[argaret] all records of bills paid, or to be paid, 
must have perished : and my whole domestic economy, 
whatever became of Political Economy, must have gone 5 
into irretrievable confusion. I shall not afterwards allude 
to this part of the case : it is one, however, which the 
opium-eater will find, in the end, as oppressive and torment- 
ing as any other, from the sense of incapacity and feeble- 
ness, from the direct embarrassments incident to the 10 
neglect or procrastination of each day's appropriate duties, 
and from the remorse which must often exasperate the 
stings of these evils to a reflective and conscientious mind. 
The opium-eater loses none of his moral sensibilities, or 
aspirations: he wishes and longs, as earnestly as ever, to 15 
realise what he believes possible, and feels to be exacted 
by duty ; but his intellectual apprehension of what is 
possible infinitely outruns his power, not of execution only, 
but even of power to attempt. He lies under the weight 
of incubus and night-mare : he lies in the sight of all that 20 
he would fain perform^ just as a man forcibly confined to 
his bed by the mortal languor of a relaxing disease, who is 
compelled to witness injury or outrage offered to some 
object of his tenderest love: — he curses the spells which 
chain him down from motion: — he would lay down his 25 
life if he might but get up and walk ; but he is powerless as 
an infant, and cannot even attempt to rise. 

I now pass to what is the main subject of these latter 
confessions, to the history and journal of what took place 
in my dreams ; for these were the immediate and proximate 30 
cause of my acutest suffering. 

The first notice I had of any important change going on 
in this part of my physical economy, was from the reawak- 
ening of a state of eye generally incident to childhood. 



238 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

\ 

or exalted states of irritability. I know not whether my 

reader is aware that many children, perhaps most, have a 

power of painting, as it were, upon the darkness, all sorts 

of phantoms ; in some, that power is simply a mechanic 

15 affection of the eye; others have a voluntary, or a semi- 
voluntary power to dismiss or to summon them ; or, as a 
child once said to me when I questioned him on this mat- 
ter, " I can tell them to go, and they go ; but sometimes 
they come when I don't tell them to come." Whereupon 

lo I told him that he had almost as unlimited command over 
apparitions as a Roman centurion over his soldiers. — In 
the middle of 18 17, I think it was, that this faculty became 
positively distressing to me : at night, when I lay awake 
in bed, vast processions passed along in mournful pomp; 

15 friezes of never-ending stories, that to my feelings were as 
sad and solemn as if they were stories drawn from times 
before CEdipus or Priam — before Tyre — before Memphis. 
And, at the same time, a corresponding change took place 
in my dreams ; a theatre seemed suddenly opened and 

20 lighted up within my brain, which presented nightly spec- 
tacles of more than earthly splendour.. And the four follow- 
ing facts may be mentioned, as noticeable at this time : 

I. That, as the creative state of the eye increased, a 
sympathy seemed to arise between the waking and the 

25 dreaming states of the brain in one point — that whatso- 
ever I happened to call up and to trace by a voluntary act 
upon the darkness was very apt to transfer itself to my 
dreams; so that I feared to exercise this faculty; for, as 
Midas turned all things to gold, that yet baffled his hopes 

30 and defrauded his human desires, so whatsoever things 
capable of being visually represented I did but think of in 
the darkness, immediately shaped themselves into phan- 
toms of the eye ; and, by a process apparently no less 
inevitable, when thus once traced in faint and visionary 



CONFESSIONS OF AN ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER 239 

colours, like writings in sympathetic ink, they were drawn 
out by the fierce chemistry of my dreams, into insufferable 
splendour that fretted my heart. 

2. For this, and all other changes in my dreams, were 
accompanied by deep-seated anxiety and gloomy melan- 5 
choly, such as are wholly incommunicable by words. I 
seemed every night to descend, not metaphorically, but 
literally to descend, into chasms and sunless abysses, 
depths below depths, from which it seemed hopeless that 

I could ever reascend. Nor did I, by waking, feel that I 10 
' had reascended. This I do not dwell upon ; because the 
state of gloom which attended these gorgeous spectacles, 
amounting at least to utter darkness, as of some suicidal 
despondency, cannot be approached by words. 

3. The sense of space, and in the end, the sense of 15 
time, were both powerfully affected. Buildings, landscapes, 
etc., were exhibited in proportions so vast as the bodily 
eye is not fitted to receive. Space swelled, and was 
amplified to an extent of unutterable infinity. This, how- 
ever, did not disturb me so much as the vast expansion 20 
of time; I sometimes seemed to have lived for 70 or 100 
years in one night ; nay, sometimes had feelings represent- 
ative of a millennium passed in that time, or, however, of a 
duration far beyond the limits of any human experience. 

4. The minutest incidents of childhood, or forgotten 2- 
scenes of later years, were often revived : I could not be 
said to recollect them ; for if I had been told of them 
when waking, I should not have been able to acknowledge 
them as parts of my past experience. But placed as they 
were before me, in dreams like intuitions, and clothed in 30 
all their evanescent circumstances and accompanying feel- 
ings, I recognised them instantaneously. I was once told 
by a near relative of mine, that having in her childhood 
fallen into a river, and being on the very verge of death 



2 40 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

but for the critical assistance which reached her, she saw 
in a moment her whole life, in its minutest incidents, 
arrayed before her simultaneously as in a mirror; and she 
had a faculty developed as suddenly for comprehending 
5 the whole and every part. This, from some opium experi- 
ences of mine, I can believe ; I have, indeed, seen the 
same thing asserted twice in modern books, and accom- 
panied by a remark which I am convinced is true ; viz., 
that the dread book of account which the Scriptures speak 

10 of is, in fact, the mind itself of each individual. Of this, 
at least, I feel assured, that there is no such thing as for- 
getting possible to the mind ; a thousand accidents may 
and will interpose a veil between our present conscious- 
ness and the secret inscriptions on the mind ; accidents of 

15 the same sort will also rend away this veil; but alike, 
whether veiled or unveiled, the inscription remains for 
ever ; just as the stars seem to withdraw before the com- 
mon light of day, whereas, in fact, we all know that it is the 
light which is drawn over them as a veil — and that they 

20 are waiting to be revealed, when the obscuring daylight 
shall have withdrawn. 

Having noticed these four facts as memorably distinguish- 
ing my dreams from those of health, I shall now cite a case 
illustrative of the first fact ; and shall then cite any others 

25 that I remember, either in their chronological order, or any 
other that may give them more effect as pictures to the reader. 
I had been in youth, and even since, for occasional amuse- 
ment, a great reader of Livy, whom I confess that I prefer, 
both for style and matter, to any other of the Roman his- 

30 torians ; and I had often felt as most solemn and appalling 
sounds, and most emphatically representative of the majesty 
of the Roman people, the two words so often occurring in 
Livy — Consul Ro77ianus ; especially when the consul is 
introduced in his military character. I mean to say, that 



CONFESSIONS OF AN ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER 241 

the words king — sultan — regent, etc., or any other titles of 
those who embody in their own persons the collective maj- 
esty of a great people, had less power over my reverential 
feelings. I had also, though no great reader of history, 
made myself minutely and critically familiar with one period 5 
of English history, viz., the period of the Parliamentary 
War, having been attracted by the moral grandeur of some 
who figured in that day, and by the many interesting 
memoirs which survive those unquiet times. Both these 
parts of my lighter reading, having furnished me often 10 
with matter of reflection, now furnished me with matter 
for my dreams. Often I used to see, after painting upon 
the blank darkness a sort of rehearsal whilst waking, a 
crowd of ladies, and perhaps a festival, and dances. And 
I heard it said, or I said to myself, "These are English 15 
ladies from the unhappy times of Charles I. These are 
the wives and the daughters of those who met in peace, 
and sat at the same tables, and were allied by marriage or 
by blood; and yet, after a certain day in August, 1642, 
never smiled upon each other again, nor met but in the 20 
field of battle ; and at Marston Moor, at Newbury, or at 
Naseby, cut asunder all ties of love by the cruel sabre, and 
washed away in blood the memory of ancient friendship." 
— The ladies danced, and looked as lovely as the court of 
George IV. Yet I knew, even in my dream, that they had 25 
been in the grave for nearly two centuries. — This pageant 
would suddenly dissolve : and, at a clapping of hands, would 
be heard the heart-quaking sound of Consul Romanus : and 
immediately came " sweeping by," in gorgeous paludaments, 
Paulus, or Marius, girt round by a company of centurions, 30 
with the crimson tunic hoisted on a spear, and followed by 
the alalagmos of the Roman legions. 

Many years ago, when I was looking over Piranesi's 
Antiquities of Rome, Mr. Coleridge, who was standing by. 



2 42 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

described to me a set of plates by that artist, called his 
Dreams^ and which record the scenery of his own visions 
during the delirium of a fever : some of them (I describe 
only from memory of Mr. Coleridge's account) representing 
5 vast Gothic halls : on the floor of which stood all sorts of 
engines and machinery, wheels, cables, pulleys, levers, cata- 
pults, etc., etc., expressive of enormous power put forth, 
and resistance overcome. Creeping along the sides of the 
walls, you perceived a staircase ; and upon it, groping his 

lo way upwards, was Piranesi himself : follow the stairs a little 
further, and you perceive it come to a sudden abrupt ter- 
mination, without any balustrade, and allowing no step 
onwards to him who had reached the extremity, except 
into the depths below. Whatever is to become of poor 

15 Piranesi, you suppose, at least, that his labours must in 
some way terminate here. But raise your eyes, and behold 
a second flight of stairs still higher : on which again 
Piranesi is perceived, but this time standing on the very 
brink of the abyss. Again elevate your eye, and a still 

20 more aerial flight of stairs is beheld : and again is poor 
Piranesi busy on his aspiring labours : and so on, until the 
unfinished stairs and Piranesi both are lost in the upper 
gloom of the hall. — With the same power of endless growth 
and self-reproduction did my architecture proceed in dreams. 

25 In the early stage of my malady, the splendours of my 
dreams were indeed chiefly architectural : and I beheld 
such pomp of cities and palaces as was never yet beheld 
by the waking eye, unless in the clouds. From a great 
modern poet I cite part of a passage which describes, as 

30 an appearance actually beheld in the clouds, what in many 
of its circumstances I saw frequently in sleep : 

" The appearance, instantaneously disclosed, 
Was of a mighty city — boldly say 
A wilderness of building, sinking far 



COArFESSIONS OF AN ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER 243 

And self-withdrawn into a wondrous depth, 

Far sinking into splendour — without end! 

Fabric it seem'd of diamond, and of gold, 

With alabaster domes, and silver spires, 

And blazing terrace upon terrace, high 5 

Uplifted ; here, serene pavilions bright 

In avenues disposed ; there towers begirt 

With battlements that on their restless fronts 

Bore stars — illumination of all gems ! 

By earthly nature had the effect been wrought 10 

Upon the dark materials of the storm 

Now pacified : on them, and on the coves. 

And mountain-steeps and summits, whereunto 

The vapours had receded, — taking there 

Their station under a cerulean sky," etc., etc. 15 

The sublime circumstance — " battlements that on their 
restless fronts bore stars," — might have been copied from 
my architectural dreams, for it often occurred. — We hear 
it reported of Dryden, and of Fuseli in modern times, that 
they thought proper to eat raw meat for the sake of obtain- 20 
ing splendid dreams : how much better for such a purpose 
to have eaten opium, which yet I do not remember that 
any poet is recorded to have done, except the dramatist 
Shadwell : and in ancient days, Homer is, I think, rightly 
reputed to have known the virtues of opium. 25 

To my architecture succeeded dreams of lakes and silvery 
expanses of water : — these haunted me so much that I 
feared, though possibly it will appear ludicrous to a medical 
man, that some dropsical state or tendency of the brain 
might thus be making itself, to use a metaphysical word, 30 
objective; and the sentient organ project itself as its own 
object. — For two months I suffered greatly in my head — 
a part of my bodily structure which had hitherto been so 
clear from all touch or taint of weakness, physically, I mean, 
that I used to say of it, as the last Lord Orford said of his 35 



2 44 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 



^ 



stomach, that it seemed likely to survive the rest of my 
person. — Till now I had never felt headache even, or any 
the slightest pain, except rheumatic pains caused by my 
own folly. However, I got over this attack, though it must 
5 have been verging on something very dangerous. 

The waters now changed their character, — from trans- 
lucent lakes, shining like mirrors, they now became seas 
and oceans. And now came a tremendous change, which, 
unfolding itself slowly like a scroll, through many months, 

lo promised an abiding torment ; and, in fact, never left me 
until the winding up of my case. Hitherto the human face 
had mixed often in my dreams, but not despotically, nor 
with any special power of tormenting. But now that 
which I have called the tyranny of the human face began 

15 to unfold itself. Perhaps some part of my London life 
might be answerable for this. Be that as it may, now it was 
that upon the rocking waters of the ocean the human face 
began to appear : the sea appeared paved with innumerable 
faces, upturned to the heavens : faces, imploring, wrathful, 

20 despairing, surged upwards by thousands, by myriads, by 
generations, by centuries: — my agitation was infinite, — 
my mind tossed — and surged with the ocean. 

May, 181S. 

The Malay has been a fearful enemy for months. I 
have been every night, through his means, transported into 

25 Asiatic scenes. I know not whether others share in my 
feelings on this point ; but I have often thought that if I 
were compelled to forego England, and to live in China, and 
among Chinese manners and modes of life and scenery, I 
should go mad. The causes of my horror lie deep ; and 

30 some of them must be common to others. Southern Asia, 
in general, is the seat of awful images and associations. 
As the cradle of the human race, it would alone have a 
dim and reverential feeling: connected with it. But there 



COAFESS/OAS OF AN ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER 245 

are other reasons. No man can pretend that the wild, 
barbarous, and capricious superstitions of Africa, or of 
savage tribes elsewhere, affect him in the way that he is 
affected by the ancient, monumental, cruel, and elaborate 
religions of Indostan, etc. The mere antiquity of Asiatic 
things, of their institutions, histories, modes of faith, etc., 
is so impressive, that to me the vast age of the race and 
name overpowers the sense of youth in tha individual. A 
young Chinese seems to me an antediluvian man renewed. 
Even Englishmen, though not bred in any knowledge of 10 
such institutions, cannot but shudder at the mystic sublim- 
ity of castes that have flowed apart, and refused to mix, 
through such immemorial tracts of time ; nor can any man 
fail to be awed by the names of the Ganges or the 
Euphrates. It contributes much to these feelings that 15 
southern Asia is, and has been for thousands of years, the 
part of the earth most swarming with human life ; the 
great qfficina gentiicm. Man is a weed in those regions. 
The vast empires also, into which the enormous population 
of Asia has always been cast, give a further sublimity to 20 
the feelings associated with all Oriental names or images. 
In China, over and above what it has in common with the 
rest of southern Asia, I am terrified by the modes of life, 
by the manners, and the barrier of utter abhorrence, and 
want of sympathy, placed between us by feelings deeper 25 
than I can analyze. I could sooner live with lunatics, or 
brute animals. All this, and much more than I can say, 
or have time to say, the reader must enter into before he 
can comprehend the unimaginable horror which these 
dreams of Oriental imagery, and mythological tortures, 30 
impressed upon me. Under the connecting feeling of 
tropical heat and vertical sunlights, I brought together all 
creatures, birds, beasts, reptiles, all trees and plants, 
usages and appearances, that are found in all tropical 



246 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

regions, and assembled them together in China or Indo- 
stan. From kindred feelings, I soon brought Egypt and 
all her gods under the same law. I was stared at, hooted 
at, grinned at, chattered at, by monkeys, by paroquets, 

5 by cockatoos. I ran into pagodas : and was fixed for 
centuries at the summit, or in secret rooms ; I w^as the 
idol ; I was the priest; I was worshipped; I was sacrificed. 
I fled from the wrath of Brama through all the forests of 
Asia : Vishnu hated me : Seeva laid wait for me. I came 

10 suddenly upon Isis and Osiris : I had done a deed, they 
said, which the ibis and the crocodile trembled at. I was 
buried for a thousand years in stone cofiins, with mum- 
mies and sphinxes, in narrow chambers at the heart of 
eternal pyramids. I was kissed, with cancerous kisses, by 

15 crocodiles ; and laid, confounded with all unutterable slimy 
things, amongst reeds and Nilotic mud. \ 

I thus give the reader some slight abstraction of my Ori- 
ental dreams, which always filled me with such amazement 
at the monstrous scenery, that horror seemed absorbed, 

20 for a while, in sheer astonishment. Sooner or later, came 
a reflux of feeling that swallowed up the astonishment, and 
left me, not so much in terror, as in hatred and abomina- 
tion of what I saw. Over every form, and threat, and 
punishment, and dim sightless incarceration, brooded a 

25 sense of eternity and infinity that drove me into an oppres- 
sion as of madness. Into these dreams only, it was, with 
one or two slight exceptions, that any circumstances of 
physical horror entered. All before had been moral and 
spiritual terrors. But here the main agents were ugly 

30 birds, or snakes, or crocodiles ; especially the last. The 
cursed crocodile became to me the object of more horror 
than almost all the rest. I was compelled to live with him ; 
and (as was always the case almost in my dreams) for cen- 
turies. I escaped sometimes, and found myself in Chinese 



CONFESSIONS OF AN ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER 247 

houses, with cane tables, etc. All the feet of the tables, 
sofas, etc., soon became instinct with life: the abominable 
head of the crocodile, and his leering eyes, looked out at 
me, multiplied into a thousand repetitions : and I stood 
loathing and fascinated. And so often did this hideous 5 
reptile haunt my dreams, that many times the very same 
dream was broken up in the very same way : I heard gentle 
voices speaking to me (I hear everything when I am sleep- 
ing) ; and instantly I awoke : it was broad noon ; and my 
children were standing, hand in hand, at my bedside ; 10 
come to show me their coloured shoes, or new frocks, or to 
let me see them dressed for going out. I protest that so 
awful was the transition from the damned crocodile, and 
the other unutterable monsters and abortions of my 
dreams, to the sight of innocent ktimafi natures and of 15 
infancy, that, in the mighty and sudden revulsion of mind, 
I wept, and could not forbear it, as I kissed their faces.. 

June, 18 1 g. 
I have had occasion to remark, at various periods of my 
life, that the deaths of those whom we love, and indeed 
the contemplation of death generally, is (cceteris paribus^ 20 
more affecting in summer than in any other season of the 
year. And the reasons are these three, I think : first, that 
the visible heavens in summer appear far higher, more dis- 
tant, and (if such a solecism may be excused) more infinite; 
the clouds, by which chiefly the eye expounds the distance 25 
of the blue pavilion stretched over our heads, are in sum- 
mer more voluminous, massed, and accumulated in far 
grander and more towering piles : secondly, the light and 
the appearances of the declining and the setting sun are 
much more fitted to be types and characters of the Infi- 30 
nite : and, thirdly, which is the main reason, the exuberant 
and riotous prodigality of life naturally forces the mind 
more powerfully upon the antagonist thought of death, 



248 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

and the wintry sterility of the grave. For it may be 
observed, generally, that wherever two thoughts stand 
related to each other by a law of antagonism, and exist, as 
it were, by mutual repulsion, they are apt to suggest each 

5 other. On these accounts it is that I find it impossible to 
banish the thought of death when I am walking alone in 
the endless days of summer ; and any particular death, if 
not more affecting, at least haunts my mind more obsti- 
nately and besiegingly in that season. Perhaps this cause, 

10 and a slight incident which I omit, might have been the 
immediate occasions of the following dream ; to which, 
however, a predisposition must always have existed in my 
mind ; but having been once roused, it never left me, and 
split into a thousand fantastic varieties, which often sud- 

1 5 denly reunited, and composed again the original dream. 

I thought that it was a Sunday morning in May, that it 

was Easter Sunday, and as yet very early in the morning. 

I was standing, as it seemed to me, at the door of my own 

cottage. Right before me lay the very scene which could 

20 really be commanded from that situation, but exalted, as 
was usual, and solemnised by the power of dreams. There 
were the same mountains, and the same lovely valley at 
their feet ; but the mountains were raised to more than 
Alpine height, and there was interspace far larger between 

25 them of meadows and forest lawns ; the hedges were rich 
with white roses ; and no living creature was to be seen, 
excepting that in the green churchyard there were cattle 
tranquilly reposing upon the verdant graves, and particularly 
round about the grave of a child whom I had tenderly loved, 

30 just as I had really beheld them, a little before sunrise in 
the same summer, when that child died. I gazed upon 
the well-known scene, and I said aloud (as I thought) to 
myself, " It yet wants much of sunrise ; and it is Easter 
Sunday ; and that is the day on which they celebrate the 



CONFESSIONS OF AN ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER 249 

first-fruits of resurrection. I will walk abroad ; old griefs 
shall be forgotten to-day ; for the air is cool and still, and 
the hills are high, and stretch away to heaven ; and the 
forest-glades are as quiet as the churchyard ; and with the 
dew I can wash the fever from my forehead, and then I 5 
shall be unhappy no longer." And I turned, as if to open 
my garden gate ; and immediately I saw upon the left a 
scene far different ; but which yet the power of dreams had 
reconciled into harmony with the other. The scene was 
an Oriental one ; and there also it was Easter Sunday, and 10 
very early in the morning. And at a vast distance were 
visible, as a stain upon the horizon, the domes and cupolas 
of a great city — an image or faint abstraction, caught per- 
haps in childhood from some picture of Jerusalem. And 
not a bowshot from me, upon a stone, and shaded by 15 
Judean palms, there sat a woman; and I looked; and it 
was — Ann ! She fixed her eyes upon me earnestly ; and I 
said to her at length : " So then I have found you at last." 
I waited : but she answered me not a word. Her face was 
the same as when I saw it last, and yet again how different ! 20 
Seventeen years ago, when the lamplight fell upon her face, 
as for the last time I kissed her lips (lips, Ann, that to me 
were not polluted), her eyes were streaming with tears : 
the tears were now wiped away ; she seemed more beautiful 
than she was at that time, but in all other points the same, 25 
and not older. Her looks were tranquil, but with unusual 
solemnity of expression ; and I now gazed upon her with 
some awe, but suddenly her countenance grew dim, and, 
turning to the mountains, I perceived vapours rolling 
between us ; in a moment, all had vanished ; thick dark- 30 
ness came on ; and, in the twinkling of an eye, I was far 
away from mountains, and by lamplight in Oxford Street, 
walking again with Ann — just as we walked seventeen 
years before, when we were both children. 



250 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

As a final specimen, I cite one of a different character, 
from 1820. 

The dream commenced with a music which now I often 
heard in dreams — a music of preparation and of awaken- 

5 ing suspense ; a music like the opening of the Coronation 
Anthem, and which, like that, gave the feeling of a vast 
march — of infinite cavalcades filing off — and the tread of 
innumerable armies. The morning was come of a mighty 
day — a day of crisis and of final hope for human nature, 

10 then suffering some mysterious eclipse, and labouring in 
some dread extremity. Somewhere, I knew not where — 
somehow, I knew not how — by some beings, I knew not 
whom — a battle, a strife, an agony, was conducting, — 
was evolving like a great drama, or piece of music ; with 

15 which my sympathy was the more insupportable from my 
confusion as to its place, its cause, its nature, and its 
possible issue. I, as is usual in dreams (where, of necessity, 
we make ourselves central to every movement), had the 
power, and yet had not the power, to decide it. I had 

20 the power, if I could raise myself, to will it, and yet again 
had not the power, for the weight of twenty Atlantics was 
upon me, or the oppression of inexpiable guilt. " Deeper 
than ever plummet sounded," I lay inactive. Then, like a 
chorus, the passion deepened. Some greater interest was 

25 at stake ; some mightier cause than ever yet the sword 
had pleaded, or trumpet had proclaimed. Then came 
sudden alarms : hurryings to and fro : trepidations of 
innumerable fugitives, I knew not whether from the good 
cause or the bad : darkness and lights : tempest and human 

30 faces : and at last, with the sense that all was lost, female 
forms, and the features that were worth all the world to me, 
and but a moment allowed, — and clasped hands, and heart- 
breaking partings, and then — everlasting farewells ! and 
with a sigh, such as the caves of hell sighed when the 



CONFESSIONS OF AN ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER 251 

incestuous mother uttered the abhorred name of death, 
the sound was reverberated — everlasting farewells! and 
again, and yet again reverberated — everlasting farewells ! 
And I awoke in struggles, and cried aloud — "I will 
sleep no more ! " 5 

But I am now called upon to wind up a narrative which 
has already extended to an unreasonable length. Within 
more spacious limits, the materials which I have used 
might have been better unfolded ; and much which I have 
not used might have been added with effect. Perhaps, 10 
however, enough has been given. It now remains that I 
should say something of the way in which this conflict of 
horrors was finally brought to its crisis. The reader is 
already aware (from a passage near the beginning of the 
introduction to the first part) that the opium-eater has, in 15 
some way or other, "unwound, almost to its final links, the 
accursed chain which bound him." By what means .'' To 
have narrated this, according to the original intention, 
would have far exceeded the space which can now be 
allowed. It is fortunate, as such a cogent reason exists for 20 
abridging it, that I should, on a maturer view of the case, 
have been exceedingly unwilling to injure, by any such 
unaffecting details, the impression of the history itself, as 
an appeal to the prudence and the conscience of the yet 
unconfirmed opium-eater — or even, though a very inferior 25 
consideration, to injure its effect as a composition. The 
interest of the judicious reader will not attach itself chiefly 
to the subject of the fascinating spells, but to the fascinat- 
ing power. Not the opium-eater, but the opium, is the 
true hero of the tale ; and the legitimate centre on which 30 
the interest revolves. The object was to display the mar- 
1 vellous agency of opium, whether for pleasure or for pain : 
if that is done, the action of the piece has closed. 



252 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

However, as some people, in spite of all laws to the 
contrary, will persist in asking what became of the opium- 
eater, and in what state he now is, I answer for him thus : 
The reader is aware that opium had long ceased to found 
5 its empire on spells of pleasure ; it was solely by the 
tortures connected with the attempt to abjure it, that it 
kept its hold. Yet, as other tortures, no less it may be 
thought, attended the non-abjuration of such a tyrant, a 
choice only of evils was left ; and that might as well have 

10 been adopted, which, however terrific in itself, held out a 
prospect of final restoration to happiness. This appears 
true ; but good logic gave the author no strength to act 
upon it. However, a crisis arrived for the author's life, 
and a crisis for other objects still dearer to him — and 

15 which will always be far dearer to him than his life, even 
now that it is again a happy one. — I saw that I must die 
if I continued the opium : I determined, therefore, if that 
should be required, to die in throwing it off. How much 
I was at that time taking I cannot say; for the opium 

20 which I used had been purchased for me by a friend 
who afterwards refused to let me pay him ; so that I 
could not ascertain even what quantity I had used 
within the year. I apprehend, how^ever, that I took it 
very irregularly : and that I varied from about fifty or 

25 sixty grains, to 150 a day. My first task was to reduce 
it to forty, to thirty, and, as fast as I could, to twelve 
grains. 

I triumphed : but think not, reader, that therefore my 
sufferings were ended ; nor think of me as of one sitting 

30 in a dejected state. Think of me as of one, even when four 
months had passed, still agitated, writhing, throbbing, pal- 
pitating, shattered ; and much, perhaps, in the situation of 
him who has been racked, as I collect the torments of that 
state from the affecting account of them left by the most 



CONFESSIONS OF AN ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER 253 

innocent sufferer ^ of the times of James I. Meantime, I 
derived no benefit from any medicine, except one prescribed 
to me by an Edinburgh surgeon of great eminence, viz., 
ammoniated tincture of valerian. Medical account, there- 
fore, of my emancipation I have not much to give: and even 5 
that little, as managed by a man so ignorant of medicine as 
myself, would probably tend only to mislead. At all events, 
it would be misplaced in this situation. The moral of the 
narrative is addressed to the opium-eater ; and therefore, 
of necessity, limited in its application. If he is taught to 10 
fear and tremble, enough has been effected. But he may 
say, that the issue of my case is at least a proof that opium, 
after a seventeen years' use, and an eight years' abuse of 
its powers, may still be renounced : and that he may chance 
to bring to the task greater energy than I did, or that with 15 
a stronger constitution than mine he may obtain the same 
results with less. This may be true : I would not presume 
to measure the efforts of other men by my own : I heartily 
wish him more energy : I wish him the same success. 
Nevertheless, I had motives external to myself which he 20 
may unfortunately want : and these supplied me with con- 
scientious supports which mere personal interests might 
fail to supply to a mind debilitated by opium. 

Jeremy Taylor conjectures that it may be as painful to 
be born as to die : 1 think it probable : and, during the 25 
whole period of diminishing the opium, I had the torments 
of a man passing out of one mode of existence into another. 
The issue was not death, but a sort of physical regenera- 
tion : and I may add, that ever since, at intervals, I have 
had a restoration of more than youthful spirits, though 30 
under the pressure of difficulties, which, in a less happy 
state of mind, I should have called misfortunes. 

1 William Lithgow : his book ("Travels," etc.) is ill and pedantically 
written : but the account of his own sufferings on the rack at Malaga 
is overpoweringly affecting. 



2 54 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

One memorial of my former condition still remains : my 
dreams are not yet perfectly calm : the dread swell and 
agitation of the storms have not wholly subsided : the 
legions that encamped in them are drawing off, but not 
5 all departed : my sleep is still tumultuous, and, like the 
gates of Paradise to our first parents when looking back 
from afar, it is still, in the tremendous line of Milton — 

" With dreadful faces throng'd and fiery arms." 

Appendix 

The proprietors of this little work having determined on 

10 reprinting it, some explanation seems called for, to account 
for the non-appearance of a Third Part promised in the 
"London Magazine" of December last; and the more so, 
because the proprietors, under whose guarantee that promise 
was issued, might otherwise be implicated in the blame — 

15 little or much — attached to its non-fulfilment. This blame, 
in mere justice, the author takes wholly upon himself. 
What may be the exact amount of the guilt which he thus 
appropriates, is a very dark question to his own judgment, 
and not much illuminated by any of the masters in casu- 

20 istry whom he has consulted on the occasion. On the 
one hand it seems generally agreed that a promise is binding 
in the inverse ratio of the numbers to whom it is made : for 
which reason it is that we see many persons break promises 
without scruple that are made to a whole nation, who keep 

25 their faith religiously in all private engagements, — breaches 
of promise towards the stronger party being committed at 
a man's own peril : on the other hand, the only parties 
interested in the promises of an author are his readers ; 
and these it is a point of modesty in any author to believe 

30 as few as possible ; or perhaps only one, in which case any 
promise imposes a sanctity of moral obligation which it is 



CONFESSIONS OF AN ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER 255 

shocking to think of. Casuistry dismissed however, — the 
author throws himself on the indulgent consideration of all 
who may conceive themselves aggrieved by his delay — in 
the following account of his own condition from the end of 
last year, when the engagement was made, up nearly to the 5 
present time. For any purpose of self-excuse, it might be 
sufficient to say that intolerable bodily suffering had totally 
disabled him for almost any exertion of mind, more espe- 
cially for such as demand and presuppose a pleasurable and 
genial state of feeling : but, as a case that may by possi- 10 
bility contribute a trifle to the medical history of opium 
in a further stage of its action than can often have been 
brought under the notice of professional men, he has judged 
that it might be acceptable to some readers to have it 
described more at length. Fiat experiniejitiim in corpora vili 15 
is a just rule where there is any reasonable presumption of 
benefit to arise on a large scale ; what the benefit may be, 
will admit of a doubt : but there can be none as to the value 
of the body : for a more worthless body than his own, the 
author is free to confess, cannot be : it is his pride to believe 20 
— that it is the very ideal of a base, crazy, despicable human 
system — that hardly ever could have been meant to be sea- 
worthy for two days under the ordinary storms and wear- 
and-tear of life : and indeed, if that were the creditable way 
of disposing of human bodies, he must own that he should 25 
almost be ashamed to bequeath his wretched structure to 
any respectable dog. — But now to the case ; which, for the 
sake of avoiding the constant recurrence of a cumbersome 
periphrasis, the author will take the liberty of giving in the 
first person. 30 

Those who have read the Confessions will have closed 
them with the impression that I had wholly renounced the 
use of opium. This impression I meant to convey : and 



256 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

that for two reasons : first, because the very act of delib- 
erately recording such a state of suffering necessarily pre- 
sumes in the recorder a power of surveying his own case 
as a cool spectator, and a degree of spirits for adequately 

5 describing it, which it would be inconsistent to suppose in 
any person speaking from the station of an actual sufferer ; 
secondly, because I, who had descended from so large a 
quantity as 8000 drops to so small a one (comparatively 
speaking) as a quantity ranging between 300 and 160 drops, 

10 might well suppose that the victory was in effect achieved. 
In suffering my readers therefore to think of me as of a 
reformed opium-eater, I left no impression but what I shared 
myself ; and, as may be seen, even this impression was left 
to be collected from the general tone of the conclusion, and 

15 not from any specific words — which are in no instance at 
variance with the literal truth. — In no long time after that 
paper was written, I became sensible that the effort which 
remained would cost me far more energy than I had antici- 
pated : and the necessity for making it was more apparent 

20 every month. In particular I became aware of an increas- 
ing callousness or defect of sensibility in the stomach ; and 
this I imagined might imply a scirrhous state of that organ 
either formed or forming. An eminent physician, to whose 
kindness I was at that time deeply indebted, informed me 

25 that such a termination of my case was not impossible, 
though likely to be forestalled by a different termination, 
in the event of my continuing the use of opium. Opium 
therefore I resolved wholly to abjure, as soon as I should 
find myself at liberty to bend my undivided attention and 

30 energy to this purpose. It was not however until the 24th 
of June last that any tolerable concurrence of facilities for 
such an attempt arrived. On that day I began my experi- 
ment, having previously settled in my own mind that I 
would not flinch, but would ''stand up to the scratch" — 



CONFESSIONS OF AN ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER 257 

under any possible "punishment." I must premise that 
about 170 or 180 drops had been my ordinary allowance 
for many months : occasionally I had run up as high as 
500; and once nearly to 700: in repeated preludes to my 
final experiment I had also gone as low as 100 drops; but 5 
had found it impossible to stand it beyond the 4th day — 
which, by the way, I have always found more difficult to 
get over than any of the preceding three. I went off under 
easy sail — 130 drops a day for 3 days : on the 4th I plunged 
at once to 80: the misery which I now suffered "took the 10 
conceit " out of me at once : and for about a month I con- 
tinued off and on about this mark : then I sunk to 60 : and 

the next day to none at all. This was the first day for 

nearly ten years that I had existed without opium. I per- 
severed in my abstinence for 90 hours ; i.e.^ upwards of half 15 

a week. Then I took ask me not how much : say, ye 

severest, what would ye have done ? then I abstained again : 
then took about 25 drops: then abstained r and so on. 

Meantime the symptoms which attended my case for the 
first six weeks of the experiment were these: — enormous 20 
irritability and excitement of the whole system : the stomach 
in particular restored to a full feeling of vitality and sensi- 
bility ; but often in great pain : unceasing restlessness night 

and day : sleep 1 scarcely knew what it was : three 

hours out of the twenty-four was the utmost I had, and that 25 
so agitated and shallow that I heard every sound that was 
near me : lower jaw constantly swelling : mouth ulcerated : 
and many other distressing symptoms that would be tedious 
to repeat ; amongst which however I must mention one, 
because it had never failed to accompany any attempt 30 
to renounce opium — viz., violent sternutation: this now 
became exceedingly troublesome : sometimes lasting for 
two hours at once, and recurring at least twice or three 
times a day. I was not much surprised at this, on 



258 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

recollecting what I had somewhere heard or read, that the 
membrane which lines the nostrils is a prolongation of that 
which lines the stomach ; whence I believe are explained 
the inflammatory appearances about the nostrils of dram- 
5 drinkers. The sudden restoration of its original sensibility 
to the stomach expressed itself, I suppose, in this way. It 
is remarkable also that, during the whole period of years 
through which I had taken opium, I had never once caught 
cold (as the phrase is), nor even the slightest cough. But 
10 now a violent cold attacked me, and a cough soon after. 
In an unfinished fragment of a letter begun about this time 

to 1 find these words: "You ask me to write the 

. Do you know Beaumont and Fletcher's play of 



Thierry and Theodoret ? There you will see my case as to 

15 sleep: nor is it much of an exaggeration in other features. 
— I protest to you that I have a greater influx of thoughts 
in one hour at present than in a whole year under the reign 
of opium. It sfiems as though all the thoughts which had 
been frozen up for a decad of years by opium, had now 

20 according to the old fable been thawed at once — such a 
multitude stream in upon me from all quarters. Yet such 
is my impatience and hideous irritability — that, for one 
which I detain and write down, fifty escape me : in spite 
of my weariness from suffering and want of sleep, I cannot 

25 stand still or sit for two minutes together. * / nunc^ et versus 
tecum meditare ca7ioros.^" 

At this stage of my experiment I sent to a neighbouring 
surgeon, requesting that he would come over to see me. In 
the evening he came : and after briefly stating the case to 

30 him, I asked this question: — Whether he did not think 
that the opium might have acted as a stimulus to the diges- 
tive organs ; and that the present state of suffering in the 
stomach, which manifestly was the cause of the inability to 
sleep, might arise from indigestion ? His answer was — No : 



CONFESSIONS OF AN ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER 259 

on the contrary he thought that the suffering was caused 
by digestion itself — which should naturally go on below 
the consciousness, but which from the unnatural state of 
the stomach, vitiated by so long a use of opium, was become 
distinctly perceptible. This opinion was plausible: and the 5 
unintermitting nature of the suffering disposes me to think 
that it was true : for, if it had been any mere irregular 
affection of the stomach, it should naturally have inter- 
mitted occasionally, and constantly fluctuated as to degree. 
The intention of nature, as manifested in the healthy 10 
state, obviously is to withdraw from our notice all the vital 
motions, such as the circulation of the blood, the expansion 
and contraction of the lungs, the peristaltic action of the 
stomach, etc. ; and opium, it seems, is able in this as in 
other instances to counteract her purposes. — By the advice 15 
of the surgeon I tried bitters : for a short time these greatly 
mitigated the feelings under which I laboured : but about 
the forty-second day of the experiment the symptoms already 
noticed began to retire, and new ones to arise of a different 
and far more tormenting class : under these, but with a 20 
few intervals of remission, I have since continued to suffer. 
But I dismiss them undescribed for two reasons : ist, 
because the mind revolts from retracing circumstantially 
any sufferings from which it is removed by too short or by 
no interval: to do this with minuteness enough to make 25 
the review of any use — would be indeed " iiifandum renovare 
dolorem,'' and possibly without a sufficient motive: for 2dly, 
I doubt whether this latter state be any way referable to 
opium — positively considered, or even negatively ; that is, 
whether it is to be numbered amongst the last evils from 30 
the direct action of opium, or even amongst the earliest 
evils consequent upon a want of opium in a system long 
deranged by its use. Certainly one part of the symptoms 
might be accounted for from the time of year (August) : for. 



2 6o SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCEY 

though the summer was not a hot one, yet in any case the 
sum of all the heat funded^ if one may say so, during the 
previous months, added to the existing heat of that month, 
naturally renders August in its better half the hottest part 
5 of the year : and it so happened that the excessive perspi- 
ration, which even at Christmas attends any great reduc- 
tion in the daily quantum of opium — and which in July 
was so violent as to oblige me to use a bath five or six times 
a day, had about the setting in of the hottest season wholly 

lo retired : on which account any bad effect of the heat might 
be the more unmitigated. Another symptom, viz., what in 
my ignorance I call internal rheumatism, sometimes affect- 
ing the shoulders, etc., but more often appearing to be 
seated in the stomach, seemed again less probably attribu- 

15 table to the opium or the want of opium than to the damp- 
ness of the house ^ which I inhabit, which had about that 
time attained its maximum — July having been, as usual, a 
month of incessant rain in our most rainy part of England. 
Under these reasons for doubting whether opium had 

20 any connexion with the latter stage of my bodily wretched- 
ness — except indeed as an occasional cause, as having left 
the body weaker and more crazy, and thus pre-disposed to 
any mal-influence whatever, — I willingly spare my reader 
all description of it : let it perish to him : and would that I 

25 could as easily say, let it perish to my own remembrances : 
that any future hours of tranquillity may not be disturbed 
by too vivid an ideal of possible human misery ! 

1 In saying this I mean no disrespect to the individual house, as the 
reader will understand when I tell him that, with the exception of one 
or two princely mansions, and some few inferior ones that have been 
coated with Roman cement, I am not acquainted with any house in this 
mountainous district which is wholly waterproof. The architecture of 
books, I flatter myself, is conducted on just principles in this country; 
but for any other architecture — it is in a barbarous state, and what is 
worse, in a retrograde state. 



CONFESSIONS OF AN ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER 261 



So much for the sequel of my experiment: as to the 
former stage, in which properly lies the experiment and its 
application to other cases, I must request my reader not 
to forget the reasons for which I have recorded it : these 
were t'vvo : ist, a belief that I might add some trifle to the 5 
history of opium as a medical agent: in this I am aware 
that I have not at all fulfilled my own intentions, in con- 
sequence of the torpor of mind — pain of body — and 
extreme disgust to the subject which besieged me whilst 
writing that part of my paper; which part, being immedi- 10 
ately sent off to the press (distant about five degrees of 
latitude), cannot be corrected or improved. But from this 
account, rambling as it may be, it is evident that thus 
much of benefit may arise to the persons most interested 
in such a history of opium— viz., to opium-eaters in general 15 
— that it establishes, for their consolation and encourage- 
ment, the fact that opium may be renounced ; and without 
greater sufferings than an ordinary resolution may support ; 
and by a pretty rapid course ^ of descent. 

1 On which last notice I would remark that mine was too rapid, and 
the suffering therefore needlessly aggravated ; or rather, perhaps, it was 
not sufficiently continuous and equably graduated. But that the reader 
may judge for himself, and above all that the opium-eater, who is pre- 
paring to retire from business, may have every sort of information 
before him, I subjoin my diary: — 



First Week 

Drops of Laud. 

Mond. June 24 130 



Second Weei 
Mond. July 



M( 



Third Week 

Drops of Laud. 

nd. July 8 300 

' g 50 



;ini 



Hiatus in MS. 



13 J 
14 



76 



Fourth Week 

Mond. July 15 76 

"16 735^ 

"17 735^ 

"18 70 

"19 240 

"20 80 

"21 35" 



262 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

To communicate this result of my experiment — was my 
foremost purpose. 2dly, as a purpose collateral to this, 
I wished to explain how it had become impossible for me 
to compose a Third Part in time to accompany this repub- 
5 lication : for during the very time of this experiment, the 
proof sheets of this reprint were sent to me from London : 
and such was my inability to expand or to improve them, 
that I could not even bear to read them over with attention 
enough to notice the press errors, or to correct any verbal 

lo inaccuracies. These were my reasons for troubling my 
reader with any record, long or short, of experiments relat- 
ing to so truly base a subject as my own body : and I am 
earnest with the reader that he will not forget them, or so 
far misapprehend me as to believe it possible that I would 

15 condescend to so rascally a subject for its own sake, or 
indeed for any less object than that of general benefit to 
others. Such an animal as the self-observing valetudi- 
narian — I know there is : I have met him myself occa- 
sionally : and I know that he is the worst imaginable 

20 hcautontimoroujne?ios ; aggravating and sustaining, by call- 
ing into distinct consciousness, every symptom that would 



Fifth Week 



Drops of Laud. 

Mond. July 22 60 

"23 none 

'24 none 



Drops of Laud. 

July 25 none 

"26 200 

"27 none 



What mean these abrupt relapses, the reader will ask perhaps, to such 
numbers as 300, 350, &c. ? The impulse to these relapses was mere 
infirmity of purpose ; the motive^ where any motive blended with this 
impulse, was either the principle of '* reculer pour rnieux sauter " (for 
under the torpor of a large dose, which lasted for a day or two, a less 
quantity satisfied the stomach, which on awakening found itself partly 
accustomed to this new ration) ; or else it was this principle — that of 
sufferings otherwise equal, those will be borne best which meet with a 
mood of anger. Now, whenever I ascended to my large dose I was 
furiously incensed on the following day, and could then have borne 
anything. 



CONFESSIONS OF AN ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER 263 

else perhaps — under a different direction given to the 
thoughts — become evanescent. But as to myself, so pro- 
found is my contempt for this undignified and selfis.h habit, 
that I could as little condescend to it as I could to spend 
my time in watching a poor servant girl — to whom at this 5 
moment I hear some lad or other making love at the 
back of my house. Is it for a Transcendental Philosopher 
to feel any curiosity on such an occasion ? Or can I, 
whose life is worth only 8}^ years' purchase, be supposed 
to have leisure for such trivial employments ? — However, 10 
to put this out of question, I shall say one thing, which 
will perhaps shock some readers : but I am sure it ought 
not to do so, considering the motives on which I say it. 
No man, I suppose, employs much of his time on the 
phenomena of his own body without some regard for it; 15 
whereas the reader sees that, so far from looking upon 
mine with any complacency or regard, I hate it and make 
it the object of my bitter ridicule and contempt : and I 
should not be displeased to know that the last indignities 
which the law inflicts upon the bodies of the worst male- 20 
factors might hereafter fall upon it. And, in testification 
of my sincerity in saying this, I shall make the following 
offer. Like other men, I have particular fancies about the 
place of my burial : having lived chiefly in a mountainous 
region, I rather cleave to the conceit that a grave in a 25 
green churchyard amongst the ancient and solitary hills 
will be a sublimer and more tranquil place of repose for a 
philosopher than any in the hideous Golgothas of London. 
Yet if the gentlemen of Surgeons' Hall think that any bene- 
fit can redound to their science from inspecting the appear- 30 
ances in the body of an opium-eater, let them speak but a 
word, and I will take care that mine shall be legally secured 

to them i.e.^ as soon as I have done with it myself. 

Let them not hesitate to express their wishes upon any 



264 SELECTIONS FROM BE QUINCE Y 

scruples of false delicacy, and consideration for my feel- 
ings : I assure them they will do me too much honour by 
'demonstrating' on such a crazy body as mine: and it will 
give me pleasure to anticipate this posthumous revenge 
5 and insult inflicted upon that which has caused me so 
much suffering in this life. Such bequests are not com- 
mon : reversionary benefits contingent upon the death of 
the testator are indeed dangerous to announce in many 
cases : of this we have a remarkable instance in the habits 

10 of a Roman prince — who used, upon any notification made 
to him by rich persons that they had left him a handsome 
estate in their wills, to express his entire satisfaction at 
such arrangements, and his gracious acceptance of those 
loyal legacies : but then, if the testators neglected to give 

15 him immediate possession of the property, if they traitor- 
ously 'persisted in living' (si vivere pcrse^'erarent, as Sueto- 
nius expresses it), he was highly provoked, and took his meas- 
ures accordingly. — In those times, and from one of the 
worst of the Caesars, we might expect such conduct : but I 

20 am sure that from English surgeons at this day I need look 
for no expressions of impatience, or of any other feelings 
but such as are answerable to that pure love of science and 
all its interests which induces me to make such an offer. 

Sept. jotk, 1822. 



FROM THE SUSPIRIA DE PROFUNDIS 
Levana and Our Ladies of Sorrow 

Oftentimes at Oxford I saw Levana in my dreams. I 
knew her by her Roman symbols. Who is Levana ? 
Reader, that do not pretend to have leisure for very much 
scholarship, you will not be angry wich me for telling you. 
Levana was the Roman goddess that performed for the new- 5 
born infant the earliest office of ennobling kindness, — 
typical, by its mode, of that grandeur which belongs to man 
everywhere, and of that benignity in powers invisible which 
even in Pagan worlds sometimes descends to sustain it. At 
the very moment of birth, just as the infant tasted for the 10 
first time the atmosphere of our troubled planet, it was laid 
on the ground. That might bear different interpretations. 
But immediately, lest so grand a creature should grovel 
there for more than one instant, either the paternal hand, 
as proxy for the goddess Levana, or some near kinsman, as 15 
proxy for the father, raised it upright, bade it look erect as 
the king of all this world, and presented its forehead to the 
stars, saying, perhaps, in his heart, '' Behold what is greater 
than yourselves ! " This symbolic act represented the 
function of Levana. And that mysterious lady, who never 20 
revealed her face (except to me in dreams), but always 
acted by delegation, had her name from the Latin verb (as 
still it is the Italian verb) leva7'e, to raise aloft. 

This is the explanation of Levana. And hence it has 
arisen that some people have understood by Levana the 25 
tutelary power that controls the education of the nursery. 

265 



2 66 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

She, that would not suffer at his birth even a prefigurative 
or mimic degradation for her awful ward, far less could be 
supposed to suffer the real degradation attaching to the 
non-development of his powers. She therefore watches over 

5 human education. Now, the word educo^ with the penulti- 
mate short, was derived (by a process often exemplified in 
the crystallisation of languages) from the word educo^ with 
the penultimate long. Whatsoever educes^ or develops, edu- 
cates. By the education of Levana, therefore, is meant, — 

lo not the poor machinery that moves by spelling-books 
and grammars, but that mighty system of central forces 
hidden in the deep bosom of human life, which by passion, 
by strife, by temptation, by the energies of resistance, works 
for ever upon children, — resting not day or night, any more 

15 than the mighty wheel of day and night themselves, whose 
moments, like restless spokes, are glimmering ^ for ever as 
they revolve. 

If, then, these are the ministries by which Levana works, 
how profoundly must she reverence the agencies of grief ! 

20 But you, reader, think that children generally are not liable 
to grief such as mine. There are two senses in the word 
generally., — the sense of Euclid, where it means universally 

lAs I have never allowed myself to covet any man's ox nor his ass, 
nor anything that is his, still less would it become a philosopher to 
covet other people's images or metaphors. Here, therefore, I restore 
to Mr, Wordsworth this fine image of the revolving wheel and the 
glimmering spokes, as appHed by him to the flying successions of 
day and night. I borrowed it for one moment in order to point my own 
sentence ; which being done, the reader is witness that I now pay it 
back instantly by a note made for that sole purpose. On the same 
principle I often borrow their seals from young ladies, when closing 
my letters, because there is sure to be some tender sentiment upon 
them about *' memory," or " hope," or " roses," or " reunion," and my 
correspondent must be a sad brute who is not touched by the elo- 
quence of the seal, even if his taste is so bad that he remains deaf 
to mine. 



SUSPIKIA DE PKOFUNDIS 267 

(or in the whole extent of \.\i^ genus) ^ and a foolish sense of 
this word, where it means usually. Now, I am far from 
saying that children universally are capable of grief like 
mine. But there are more than you ever heard of who die 
of grief in this island of ours. I will tell you a common 5 
case. The rules of Eton require that a boy on the 
foundation should be there twelve years : he is superan- 
nuated at eighteen ; consequently he must come at six. 
Children torn away from mothers and sisters at that age 
not unfrequently die. I speak of what I know. The com- 10 
plaint is not entered by the registrar as grief ; but that it is. 
Grief of that sort, and at that age, has killed more than 
ever have been counted amongst its martyrs. 

Therefore it is that Levana often communes with the 
powers that shake man's heart ; therefore it is that she dotes 15 
upon grief. " These ladies," said I softly to myself, on see- 
ing the ministers with whom Levana was conversing, " these 
are the Sorrows ; and they are three in number : as the 
Graces are three, who dress man's life with beauty; the 
Parcce are three, who weave the dark arras of man's life in 20 
their mysterious loom always with colours sad in part, some- 
times angry with tragic crimson and black ; the Furies are 
three, who visit with retributions called from the other side 
of the grave offences that walk upon this ; and once even 
the Muses were but three, who fit the harp, the trumpet, or 25 
the lute, to the great burdens of man's impassioned crea- 
tions. These are the Sorrows ; all three of whom I know." 
The last words I say 7iow ; but in Oxford I said, "one of 
whom I know, and the others too surely I shall know." 
For already, in my fervent youth, I saw (dimly relieved 30 
upon the dark background of my dreams) the imperfect 
lineaments of the awful Sisters. 

These Sisters — by v.hat name shall we call them? If 
I say simply "The Sorrows," there will be a chance of 



268 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

mistaking the term ; it might be understood of individual 
sorrow, — separate cases of sorrow, — whereas I want a term 
expressing the mighty abstractions that incarnate them- 
selves in all individual sufferings of man's heart, and I wish 
5 to have these abstractions presented as impersonations, — 
that is, as clothed with human attributes of life, and with 
functions pointing to flesh. Let us call them, therefore. 
Our Ladies of Sorrow. 

I know them thoroughly, and have walked in all their 

lo kingdoms. Three sisters they are, of one mysterious house- 
hold ; and their paths are wide apart ; but of their dominion 
there is no end. Them I saw often conversing with Levana, 
and sometimes about myself. Do they talk, then ? O no ! 
Mighty phantoms like these disdain the infirmities of lan- 

15 guage. They may utter voices through the organs of man 
when they dwell in human hearts, but amongst themselves 
is no voice nor sound ; eternal silence reigns in their 
kingdoms. They spoke not as they talked with Levana ; 
they whispered not ; they sang not ; though oftentimes 

20 methought they might have sung : for I upon earth had 
heard their mysteries oftentimes deciphered by harp and 
timbrel, by dulcimer and organ. Like God, whose servants 
they are, they utter their pleasure not by sounds that 
perish, or by words that go astray, but by signs in heaven, 

25 by changes on earth, by pulses in secret rivers, heraldries 
painted on darkness, and hieroglyphics written on the 
tablets of the brain. They wheeled in mazes ; / spelled 
the steps. 77;^^ telegraphed from afar; /read the signals. 
They conspired together ; and on the mirrors of darkness 

30 my eye traced the plots. Theirs were the symbols ; mine 
are the words. 

What is it the Sisters are ? What is it that they do ? 
Let me describe their form and their presence, if form it 
were that still fluctuated in its outline, or presence it were 



SUSPIRIA DE PRO FUND IS 269 

that for ever advanced to the front or for ever receded 
amongst shades. 

The eldest of the three is named Mater Lachrymarum^ 
Our Lady of Tears. She it is that night and day raves 
and moans, calling for vanished faces. She stood in Rama, 5 
where a voice was heard of lamentation, — Rachel weeping 
for her children, and refusing to be comforted. She it was 
that stood in Bethlehem on the night when Herod's sword 
swept its nurseries of Innocents, and the little feet were 
stiffened foi ever which, heard at times as they trotted 10 
along floors overhead, woke pulses of love in household 
hearts that were not unmarked in heaven*. Her eyes are 
sweet and subtle, wild and sleepy, by turns; oftentimes 
rising to the clouds, oftentimes challenging the heavens. 
She wears a diadem round her head. And I knew by child- 15 
ish memories that she could go abroad upon the winds, 
when she heard the sobbing of litanies, or the thundering 
of organs, and when she beheld the mustering of summer 
clouds. / This Sister, the elder, it is that carries keys more 
than papal at her girdle, which open every cottage and 20 
every palace. She, to my knowledge, sat all last summer 
by the bedside of the blind beggar, him that so often and 
so gladly I talked with, whose pious daughter, eight years 
old, with the sunny countenance, resisted the temptations 
of play and village mirth, to travel all day long on dusty 25 
roads with her afflicted father. For this did God send her 
a great reward. In the spring time of the year, and whilst 
yet her own spring was budding, He recalled her to himself. 
But her blind father mourns for ever over her: still he 
dreams at midnight that the little guiding hand is locked 30 
within his own ; and still he wakens to a darkness that is 
now within a second and a deeper darkness. This Mater 
Lachrymarum also has been sitting all this winter of 1844-5 
within the bedchamber of the Czar, bringing before his 



270 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

eyes a daughter (not less pious) that vanished to God not 
less suddenly, and left behind her a darkness not less pro- 
found. By the power of the keys it is that Our Lady of 
Tears glides, a ghostly intruder, into the chambers of sleep- 

5 less men, sleepless women, sleepless children, from Ganges 

to the Nile, from Nile to Mississippi. And her, because 

she is the first-born of her house, and has the widest 

empire, let us honour with the title of "Madonna." 

The second Sister is called Mater Suspirioriim^ Our Lady 

10 of Sighs. She never scales the clouds, nor walks abroad 
upon the winds. She wears no diadem. And her eyes, if 
they were ever seen, would be neither sweet nor subtle ; no 
man could read their story ; they would be found filled with 
perishing dreams, and with wrecks of forgotten delirium. 

15 But she raises not her eyes; her head, on which sits a 
dilapidated turban, droops for ever, for ever fastens on the 
dust. She weeps not. She groans not. But she sighs 
inaudibly at intervals. Her sister. Madonna, is oftentimes 
stormy and frantic, raging in the highest against heaven, 

20 and demanding back her darlings. But Our Lady of Sighs 
never clamours, never defies, dreams not of rebellious aspi- 
rations. She is humble to abjectness. Hers is the meek- 
ness that belongs to the hopeless. Murmur she may, but 
it is in her sleep. Whisper she may, but it is to herself in 

25 the twilight. Mutter she does at times, but it is in solitary 
places that are desolate as she is desolate, in ruined cities, 
and when the sun has gone down to his rest. This Sister 
is the visitor of the Pariah, of the Jew, of the bondsman to 
the oar in the Mediterranean galleys ; of the English crim- 

30 inal in Norfolk Island, blotted out from the books of remem- 
brance in sweet far-off England ; of the baffled penitent 
reverting his eyes for ever upon a solitary grave, which to 
him seems the altar overthrown of some past and bloody 
sacrifice, on which altar no oblations can now be availing, 



SUSP IR I A DE PRO FUND IS 271 

whether towards pardon that he might implore, or towards 
reparation that he might attempt. Every slave that at 
noonday looks up to the tropical sun with timid reproach, 
as he points with one hand to the earth, our general mother, 
but for him a stepmother, as he points with the other hand 5 
to the Bible, our general teacher, but against hiiji sealed 
and sequestered ; ^ every woman sitting in darkness, with- 
out love to shelter her head, or hope to illumine her soli- 
tude, because the heaven-born instincts kindling in her 
nature germs of holy affections, which God implanted in her 10 
womanly bosom, having been stifled by social necessities, 
now burn sullenly to waste, like sepulchral lamps amongst 
the ancients ; every nun defrauded of her unreturning May- 
time by wicked kinsman, whom God will judge ; every cap- 
tive in every dungeon; all that are betrayed, and all that 15 
are rejected ; outcasts by traditionary law, and children of 
hereditary disgrace : all these walk with Our Lady of Sighs. 
She also carries a key ; but she needs it little. For her 
kingdom is chiefly amongst the tents of Shem, and the 
houseless vagrant of every clime. Yet in the very highest 20 
ranks of man she finds chapels of her own ; and even in 
glorious England there are some that, to the world, carry 
their heads as proudly as the reindeer, who yet secretly 
have received her mark upon their foreheads. 

But the third Sister, who is also the youngest ! 25 

Hush! whisper whilst we talk of her! Her kingdom is 
not large, or else no flesh should live ; but within that 
kingdom all power is hers. Her head, turreted like that 
of Cybele, rises almost beyond the reach of sight. She 

iThis, the reader will be aware, applies chiefly to the cotton and 
tobacco States of North America ; but not to them only : on which 
account I have not scrupled to figure the sun which looks down upon 
slavery as tropical, — no matter if strictly within the tropics, or simply 
so near to them as to produce a similar climate. 



272 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCEY 

droops not ; and her eyes, rising so high, iiiight be hidden 
by distance. But, being what they are, they cannot be 
hidden : through the treble veil of crape which she wears 
the fierce light of a blazing misery, that rests not for 
5 matins or for vespers, for noon of day or noon of night, 
for ebbing or for flowing tide, may be read from the very 
ground. She is the defier of God. She also is the mother 
of lunacies, and the suggestress of suicides. Deep lie 
the roots of her power ; but narrow is the nation that she 

lo rules. For she can approach only those in whom a pro- 
found nature has been upheaved by central convulsions; 
in whom the heart trembles and the brain rocks under 
conspiracies of tempest from without and tempest from 
within. Madonna moves with uncertain steps, fast or 

15 slow, but still with tragic grace. Our Lady of Sighs 
creeps timidly and stealthily. But this youngest Sister 
moves with incalculable motions, bounding, and with 
tiger's leaps. She carries no key ; for, though coming 
rarely amongst men, she storms all doors at which she is 

20 permitted to enter at all. And her name is Mater Tene- 
braruj?i, — Our Lady of Darkness. 

These were the Semnai Theai or Sublime Goddesses,^ 
these were the Eumenides or Gracious Ladies (so called 
by antiquity in shuddering propitiation), of my Oxford 

25 dreams. Madonna spoke. She spoke by her mysterious 

hand. Touching my head, she beckoned to Our Lady of 

Sighs ; and what she spoke, translated out of the signs 

which (except in dreams) no man reads, was this : — 

"Lo! here is he whom in childhood I dedicated to my 

30 altars. This is he that once I made my darling. Him I 

'^^'^ Sublime Goddesses'''' : — The word aefxvos is usually rendered vener- 
able in dictionaries, — not a very flattering epithet for females. But I 
am disposed to think that it comes nearest to our idea of the sublime, 
— as near as a Greek word cotdd come. 



SUSPIRIA DE PRO FUND IS 273 

led astray, him I beguiled ; and from heaven I stole away 
his young heart to mine. Through me did he become 
idolatrous ; and through me it was, by languishing desires, 
that he worshipped the worm, and prayed to the wormy 
grave. Holy was the grave to him ; lovely was its dark- 5 
ness ; saintly its corruption. Him, this young idolater, I 
have seasoned for thee, dear gentle Sister of Sighs ! Do 
thou take him now to thy heart, and season him for our 
dreadful sister. And thou," — turning to the Mater Tene- 
brarum, she said, — "wicked sister, that temptest and 10 
hatest, do thou take him from her. See that thy sceptre 
lie heavy on his head. Suffer not woman and her tender- 
ness to sit near him in his darkness. Banish the frailties 
of hope ; wither the relenting of love ; scorch the fountains 
of tears ; curse him as only thoji canst curse. So shall he 1 5 
be accomplished in the furnace ; so shall he see the things 
that ought not to be seen, sights that are abominable, and 
secrets that are unutterable. So shall he read elder truths, 
sad truths, grand truths, fearful truths. So shall he rise 
again before he dies. And so shall our commission be 20 
accomplished which from God we had, — to plague his 
heart until we had unfolded the capacities of his spirit." 

Savannah-la-Mar 

God smote Savannah-la-mar, and in one night, by earth- 
quake, removed her, with all her towers standing and 
population sleeping, from the steadfast foundations of the 25 
shore to the coral floors of ocean. And God said, — 
" Pompeii did I bury and conceal from men through seven- 
teen centuries : this city I will bury, but not conceal. She 
shall be a monument to men of my mysterious anger, set 
in azure light through generations to come ; for I will 30 
enshrine her in a crystal dome of my tropic seas." This 



2 74 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

city, therefore, like a mighty galleon with all her apparel 
mounted, streamers flying, and tackling perfect, seems 
floating along the noiseless depths of ocean ; and oftentimes 
in glassy calms, through the translucid atmosphere of water 
5 that now stretches like an air-woven awning above the silent 
encampment, mariners from every clime look down into 
her courts and terraces, count her gates, and number the 
spires of her churches. She is one ample cemetery, and 
has been for many a year ; but, in the mighty calms that 

10 brood for weeks over tropic latitudes, she fascinates the 
eye with a Fata-Morgana revelation, as of human life still 
subsisting in submarine asylums sacred from the storms 
that torment our upper air. 

Thither, lured by the loveliness of cerulean depths, by 

15 the peace of human dwellings privileged from molestation, 
by the gleam of marble altars sleeping in everlasting 
sanctity, oftentimes in dreams did I and the Dark Inter- 
preter cleave the watery veil that divided us from her 
streets. We looked into the belfries, where the pendulous 

20 bells were waiting in vain for the summons which should 
awaken their marriage peals ; together we touched the 
mighty organ-keys, that sang no Jubilates for the ear of 
heaven, that sang no requiems for the ear of human sorrow ; 
together we searched the silent nurseries, where the chil- 

25 dren were all asleep, and had been asleep through five 
generations. "They are waiting for the heavenly dawn," 
whispered the Interpreter to himself: "and, when that 
comes, the bells and organs will utter a Jubilate repeated 
by the echoes of Paradise." Then, turning to me, he 

30 said, — " This is sad, this is piteous ; but less would not 
have sufficed for the purpose of God. Look here. Put 
into a Roman clepsydra one hundred drops of water ; 
let these run out as the sands in an hour-glass, every drop 
measuring the hundredth part of a second, so that each 



SUSPIRIA DE PRO FUND IS 275 

shall represent but the three-hundred-and-sixty-thousandth 
part of an hour. Now, count the drops as they race 
along ; and, when the fiftieth of the hundred is passing, 
behold ! forty-nine are not, because already they have 
perished, and fifty are not, because they are yet to come. 5 
You see, therefore, how narrow, how incalculably nar- 
row, is the true and actual present. Of that time which 
we call the present, hardly a hundredth part but belongs 
either to a past which has fled, or to a future which is still 
on the wing. It has perished, or it is not born. It was, 10 
or it is not. Yet even this approximation to the truth is 
ifififiitely false. For again subdivide that solitary drop, 
which only was found to represent the present, into a 
lower series of similar fractions, and the actual present 
which you arrest measures now but the thirty-sixth-mil- 15 
lionth of an hour ; and so by infinite declensions the true 
and very present, in which only we live and enjoy, will 
vanish into a mot-e of a mote, distinguishable only by a 
heavenly vision. Therefore the present, which only man 
possesses, offers less capacity for his footing than the 20 
slenderest film that ever spider twisted from her womb. 
Therefore, also, even this incalculable shadow from the 
narrowest pencil of moonlight is more transitory than 
geometry can measure, or thought of angel can overtake. 
The time which is contracts into a mathematic point; and 25 
even that point perishes a thousand times before we can 
utter its birth. All is finite in the present ; and even that 
finite is infinite in its velocity of flight towards death. But 
in God there is nothing finite ; but in God there is nothing 
transitory ; but in God there can be nothing that tends to 30 
death. Therefore it follows that for God there can be no 
present. The future is the present of God, and to the 
future it is that he sacrifices the human present. There- 
fore it is that he works by earthquake. Therefore it is 



276 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

that he works by grief. O, deep is the ploughing of earth- 
quake ! O, deep " — (and his voice swelled like a sanctiis 
rising from a choir of a cathedral) — *' O, deep is the 
ploughing of grief! But oftentimes less would not suffice 

5 for the agriculture of God. Upon a night of earthquake 
he builds a thousand years of pleasant habitations for 
man. Upon the sorrow of an infant he raises oftentimes 
from human intellects glorious vintages that could not else 
have been. Less than these fierce ploughshares would not 

10 have stirred the stubborn soil. The one is needed for Earth, 
our planet, — for Earth itself as the dwelling-place of man ; 
but the other is needed yet oftener for God's mightiest 
instrument, — yes" (and he looked solemnly at myself), 
" is needed for the mysterious children of the Earth ! " 



I 



THE ENGLISH MAIL-COACH 

Section I — The Glory of Motion 

Some twenty or more years before I matriculated at 
Oxford, Mr. Palmer, at that time M.P. for Bath, had 
accomplished two things, very hard to do on our little 
planet, the Earth, however cheap they may be held by 
eccentric people in comets : he had invented mail-coaches, 5 
and he had married the daughter of a duke. He was, 
therefore, just twice as great a man as Galileo, who did 
certainly invent (or, which is the same thing,^ discover) 
the satellites of Jupiter, those very next things extant to 
mail-coaches in the two capital pretensions of speed and 10 
keeping time, but, on the other hand, who did not marry 
the daughter of a duke. 

These mail-coaches, as organised by Mr. Palmer, are 
entitled to a circumstantial notice from myself, having had 
so large a share in developing the anarchies of my subse- 15 
quent dreams: an agency which they accomplished, ist, 
through velocity at that time unprecedented — for they first 
revealed the glory of motion ; 2dly, through grand effects 
for the eye between lamplight and the darkness upon soli- 
tary roads ; 3dly, through animal beauty and power so often 20 
displayed in the class of horses selected for this mail service; 

1 " The same thing " ; — Thus, in the calendar of the Church Festi- 
vals, the discovery of the true cross (by Helen, the mother of 
Constantine) is recorded (and, one might think, with the express 
consciousness of sarcasm) as the Invention of the Cross. 

277 



278 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

4thly, through the conscious presence of a central intellect, 
that, in the midst of vast distances ^ — of storms, of darkness, 
of danger — overruled all obstacles into one steady co-opera- 
tion to a national result. For my own feeling, this post-office 
5 service spoke as by some mighty orchestra, where a thousand 
instruments, all disregarding each other, and so far in dan- 
ger of discord, yet all obedient as slaves to the supreme batoti 
of some great leader, terminate in a perfection of harmony 
like that of heart, brain, and lungs in a healthy animal organ- 
ic isation. But, finally, that particular element in this whole 
combination which most impressed myself, and through 
which it is that to this hour Mr. Palmer's mail-coach system 
tyrannises over my dreams by terror and terrific beauty, lay 
in the awful political mission which at that time it fulfilled. 
15 The mail-coach it was that distributed over the face of the 
land, like the opening of apocalyptic vials, the heart-shaking 
news of Trafalgar, of Salamanca, of Vittoria, of Waterloo. 
These were the harvests that, in the grandeur of their 
reaping, redeemed the tears and blood in which they 
20 had been sown. Neither was the meanest peasant so much 
below the grandeur and the sorrow of the times as to con- 
found battles such as these, which were gradually moulding 
the destinies of Christendom, with the vulgar conflicts of 
ordinary warfare, so often no more than gladiatorial trials 
25 of national prowess. The victories of England in this 
stupendous contest rose of themselves as natural Te Dennis 
to heaven; and it was felt by the thoughtful that such 
victories, at such a crisis of general prostration, were not 
more beneficial to ourselves than finally to France, our 
30 enemy, and to the nations of all western or central Europe, 

1 " Vast distances " ; — One case was familiar to mail-coach travellers 
where two mails in opposite directions, north and south, starting at 
the same minute from points six hundred miles apart, met almost con- 
stantly at a particular bridge which bisected the total distance. 



THE ENGLISH MAIL-COACH 279 

through whose pusillanimity it was that the French domina- 
tion had prospered. 

The mail-coach, as the national organ for publishing 
these mighty events, thus diffusively influential, became 
itself a spiritualised and glorified object to an impassioned 5 
heart ; and naturally, in the Oxford of that day, all hearts 
were impassioned, as being all (or nearly all) in early man- 
hood. In most universities there is one single college ; in 
Oxford there were five-and-twenty, all of which were peopled 
by young men, the elite of their own generation ; not boys, 10 
but men : none under eighteen. In some of these many 
colleges the custom permitted the student to keep what are 
called " short terms " ; that is, the four terms of Michael- 
mas, Lent, Easter, and Act, were kept by a residence, in 
the aggregate, of ninety-one days, or thirteen weeks. Under 1 5 
this interrupted residence, it was possible that a student 
might have a reason for going down to his home four 
times in the year. This made eight journeys to and fro. 
But, as these homes lay dispersed through all the shires of 
the island, and most of us disdained all coaches except his 20 
Majesty's mail, no city out of London could pretend to so 
extensive a connexion with Mr. Palmer's establishment as 
Oxford. Three mails, at the least, I remember as passing 
every day through Oxford, and benefiting by my personal 
patronage — viz., the Worcester, the Gloucester, and the 25 
Holyhead mail. Naturally, therefore, it became a point of 
some interest with us, whose journeys revolved every six 
weeks on an average, to look a little into the executive 
details of the system. With some of these Mr. Palmer had 
no concern ; they rested upon bye-laws enacted by posting- 30 
houses for their own benefit, and upon other bye-laws, 
equally stern, enacted by the inside passengers for the 
illustration of their own haughty exclusiveness. These last 
were of a nature to rouse our scorn ; from which the 



28o SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE V 

transition was not very long to systematic mutiny. Up to 
this time, say 1804, or 1805 (the year of Trafalgar), it had 
been the fixed assumption of the four inside people (as an 
old tradition of all public carriages derived from the reign of 
5 Charles II) that they, the illustrious quaternion, constituted 
a porcelain variety of the human race, whose dignity would 
have been compromised by exchanging one word of civility 
with the three miserable delf-ware outsides. Even to have 
kicked an outsider might have been held to attaint the foot 

10 concerned in that operation, so that, perhaps, it would have 
required an act of Parliament to restore its purity of blood. 
What words, then, could express the horror, and the sense 
of treason, in that case, which /^^^ happened, where all three 
outsides (the trinity of Pariahs) made a vain attempt to sit 

15 down at the same breakfast-table or dinner-table with the 
consecrated four ? I myself witnessed such an attempt ; and 
on that occasion a benevolent old gentleman endeavoured 
to soothe his three holy associates, by suggesting that, if 
the outsides were indicted for this criminal attempt at the 

20 next assizes, the court would regard it as a case of lunacy 
or delirium tremens rather than of treason. England owes 
much of her grandeur to the depth of the aristocratic 
element in her social composition, when pulling against 
her strong democracy. I am not the man to laugh at it. 

25 But sometimes, undoubtedly, it expressed itself in comic 
shapes. The course taken with the infatuated outsiders, 
in the particular attempt which I have noticed, was that 
the waiter, beckoning them away from the privileged salle- 
a-7nafiger^ sang out, "This way, my good men," and then 

30 enticed these good men away to the kitchen. But that plan 
had not always answered. Sometimes, though rarely, cases 
occurred where the intruders, being stronger than usual, or 
more vicious than usual, resolutely refused to budge, and so 
far carried their point as to have a separate table arranged 



THE ENGLISH MAIL-COACH 281 

for themselves in a corner of the general room. Yet, if an 
Indian screen could be found ample enough to plant them 
out from the very eyes of the high table, or dais, it .then 
became possible to assume as a fiction of law that the three 
delf fellows, after all, were not present. They could be 5 
ignored by the porcelain men, under the maxim that objects 
not appearing and objects not existing are governed by the 
same logical construction.^ 

Such being, at that time, the usage of mail-coaches, what 
was to be done by us of young Oxford ? We, the most 10 
aristocratic of people, who were addicted to the practice of 
looking down superciliously even upon the insides them- 
selves as often very questionable characters — were we, by 
voluntarily going outside, to court indignities ? If our dress 
and bearing sheltered us generally from the suspicion of 15 
being " raff " (the name at that period for "snobs " '^), we 
really were such constructively by the place we assumed. 
If we did not submit to the deep shadow of eclipse, we 
entered at least the skirts of its penumbra. And the 
analogy of theatres was valid against us, — where no man 20 
can complain of the annoyances incident to the pit or 
gallery, having his instant remedy in paying the higher 
price of the boxes. But the soundness of this analogy we 
disputed. In the case of the theatre, it cannot be pre- 
tended that the inferior situations have any separate 25 
attractions, unless the pit may be supposed to have an 
advantage for the purposes of the critic or the dramatic 
reporter. But the critic or reporter is a rarity. For most 

1 De non apparentibus, etc. 

2 ^'- Snobs, ^^ and its antithesis, '■'■nobs" arose among the internal fac- 
tions of shoemakers perhaps ten years later. Possibly enough, the 
terms may have existed much earlier ; but they were then first made 
known, picturesquely and effectively, by a trial at some assizes which 
happened to fix the public attention. 



282 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

people, the sole benefit is in the price. Now, on the con- 
trary, the outside of the mail had its own incommunicable 
advantages. These we could not forego. The higher 
price we would willingly have paid, but not the price 

5 connected with the condition of riding inside ; which con- 
dition we pronounced insufferable. The air, the freedom 
of prospect, the proximity to the horses, the elevation of 
seat : these were what we required ; but, above all, the 
certain anticipation of purchasing occasional opportunities 

lo of driving. 

Such was the difficulty which pressed us ; and under the 
coercion of this difficulty we instituted a searching inquiry 
into the true quality and valuation of the different apart- 
ments about the mail. We conducted this inquiry on meta- 

15 physical principles; and it was ascertained satisfactorily 
that the roof of the coach, which by some weak men had 
been called the attics, and by some the garrets, was in 
reality the drawing-room ; in which drawing-room the box 
was the chief ottoman or sofa ; whilst it appeared that the 

20 inside, which had been traditionally regarded as the only 
room tenantable by gentlemen, was, in fact, the coal-cellar 
in disguise. 

Great wits jump. The very same idea had not long 
before struck the celestial intellect of China. Amongst the 

25 presents carried out by our first embassy to that country 
was a state-coach. It had been specially selected as a 
personal gift by George III ; but the exact mode of using 
it was an intense mystery to Pekin. The ambassador, 
indeed (Lord Macartney), had made some imperfect expla- 

30 nations upon this point ; but, as His Excellency communi- 

\ cated these in a diplomatic whisper at the very moment 
of his departure, the celestial intellect was very feebly illu- 
minated, and it became necessary to call a cabinet council 

^^ on the grand state question, "Where was the Emperor to 



THE ENGLISH MAIL-COACH 283 

sit ? " The hammer-cloth happened to be unusually gorgeous ; 
and, partly on that consideration, but partly also because 
the box offered the most elevated seat, was nearest to the 
moon, and undeniably went foremost, it was resolved by 
acclamation that the box was the imperial throne, and, 
for the scoundrel who drove, — he might sit where he could 
find a perch. The horses, therefore, being harnessed, \ 
solemnly his imperial majesty ascended his new English \ 
throne under a flourish of trumpets, having the first lord of \ 
the treasury on his right hand, and the chief jester on his 16 
left. Pekin gloried in the spectacle ; and in the whole 
flowery people, constructively present by representation, 
there was but one discontented person, and that was the 1 
coachman. This mutinous individual audaciously shouted, 
"Where am / to sit?" But the privy council, incensed 15 
by his disloyalty, unanimously opened the door, and kicked 
him into the inside. He had all the inside places to him- 
self ; but such is the rapacity of ambition that he was still 
dissatisfied. " I say," he cried out in an extempore petition 
addressed to the Emperor through the window — "I say, 20 
how am I to catch hold of the reins ?" — "Anyhow," was 
the imperial answer ; " don't trouble me^ man, in my glory. 
How catch the reins ? Why, through the windows, through 
the keyholes — ^wjhow." Finally this contumacious coach- 
man lengthened the check-strings into a sort of jury-reins 25 
communicating with the horses ; with these he drove as 
steadily as Pekin had any right to expect. The Emperor 
returned after the briefest of circuits ; he descended in 
great pomp from his throne, with the severest resolution 
never to remount it. A public thanksgiving was ordered 30 
for his majesty's happy escape from the disease of a broken 
neck ; and the state-coach was dedicated thenceforward 
as a votive offering to the god Fo Fo — whom the learned 
more accurately called Fi Fi. 



284 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCEY 

A revolution of this same Chinese character did young 
Oxford of that era effect in the constitution of mail-coach 
society. It was a perfect French Revolution ; and we had 
good reason to say, ^a ira. In fact, it soon became too 

5 popular. The " public " — a well-known character, particu- 
larly disagreeable, though slightly respectable, and noto- 
rious for affecting the chief seats in synagogues — had at 
first loudly opposed this revolution ; but, when the oppo- 
sition showed itself to be ineffectual, our disagreeable 

10 friend went into it with headlong zeal. At first it was a 
sort of race between us ; and, as the public is usually from 
thirty to fifty years old, naturally we of young Oxford, that 
averaged about twenty, had the advantage. Then the" 
public took to bribing, giving fees to horse-keepers, &c., 

15 who hired out their persons as warming-pans on the box 
seat. That^ you know, was shocking to all moral sensibili- 
ties. Come to bribery, said we, and there is an end to 
all morality, — Aristotle's, Zeno's, Cicero's, or anybody's. 
And, besides, of what use was it ? For we bribed also. 

20 And, as our bribes, to those of the public, were as five 
shillings to sixpence, here again young Oxford had the 
advantage. But the contest was ruinous to the principles 
of the stables connected with the mails. This whole cor- 
poration was constantly bribed, rebribed, and often sur- 

25 rebribed ; a mail-coach yard was like the hustings in a 
contested election ; and a horse-keeper, ostler, or helper, 
was held by the philosophical at that time to be the most 
corrupt character in the nation. 

There was an impression upon the public mind, natural 

30 enough from the continually augmenting velocity of the 
mail, but quite erroneous, that an outside seat on this class 
of carriages was a post of danger. On the contrary, I 
maintained that, if a man had become nervous from some 
gipsy prediction in his childhood, allocating to a particular 



THE ENGLISH MAIL-COACH 285 

moon now approaching some unknown danger, and he 
should inquire earnestly, "Whither can I fly for shelter? 
Is a prison the safest retreat ? or a lunatic hospital ? or the 
British Museum?" I should have replied, "Oh no; I'll , 
tell you what to do. Take lodgings for the next forty days 5 
on the box of his Majesty's mail. Nobody can touch you 
there. If it is by bills at ninety days after date that you 
are made unhappy — if noters and protesters are the sort 
of wretches whose astrological shadows darken the house 
of life — then note you what I vehemently protest : viz., 10 
that, no matter though the sheriff and under-sheriff in every 
county should be running after you with his posse, touch a 
hair of your head he cannot whilst you keep house and 
have your legal domicile on the box of the mail. It is 
felony to stop the mail; even the sheriff cannot do that. 15 
And an extra touch of the whip to the leaders (no great 
matter if it grazes the sheriff) at any time guarantees your 
safety." In fact, a bedroom in a quiet house seems a 
safe enough retreat ; yet it is liable to its own notorious 
nuisances — to robbers by night, to rats, to fire. But the 20 
mail laughs at these terrors. To robbers, the answer is 
packed up and ready for delivery in the barrel of the guard's 
blunderbuss. Rats again ! there are none about mail- 
coaches any more than snakes in Von Troll's Iceland^ ; 
except, indeed, now and then a parliamentary rat, who 25 
always hides his shame in what I have shown to be the 
"coal-cellar." And, as to fire, I never knew but one in a 
mail-coach; which was in the Exeter mail, and caused by 
an obstinate sailor bound to Devonport. Jack, making 
light of the law and the lawgiver that had set their faces 30 

1 " Von Troll's Iceland" : — The allusion is to a well-known chapter 
in Von Troil's work, entitled, " Concerning the Snakes of Iceland." 
The entire chapter consists of these six words — " There are no snakes 
in Iceland." 



286 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

against his offence, insisted on taking up a forbidden 
seat ^ in the rear of the roof, from which he could exchange 
his own yarns with those of the guard. No greater offence 
was then known to mail-coaches ; it was treason, it was 
5 IcEsa majestas, it was by tendency arson ; and the ashes of 
Jack's pipe, falling amongst the straw of the hinder boot, 
containing the mail-bags, raised a flame which (aided by 
the wind of our motion) threatened a revolution in the 
republic of letters. Yet even this left the sanctity of the 

10 box unviolated. In dignified repose, the coachman and 
myself sat on, resting with benign composure upon our 
knowledge that the fire would have to burn its way through 
four inside passengers before it could reach ourselves. I 
remarked to the coachman, with a quotation from Virgil's 

15 "^Eneid " really too hackneyed — 

"Jam proximus ardet 
Ucalegon." 

1 '^Forbidden seaf" : — The very sternest code of rules was enforced 
upon the mails by the Post-office. Throughout England, only three 
outsides were allowed, of whom one was to sit on the box, and the 
other two immediately behind the box ; none, under any pretext, to 
come near the guard ; an indispensable caution ; since else, under the 
guise of a passenger, a robber might by any one of a thousand advan- 
tages — which sometimes are created, but always are favoured, by the 
animation of frank social intercourse — have disarmed the guard. 
Beyond the Scottish border, the regulation was so far relaxed as to 
allow oifour outsides, but not relaxed at all as to the mode of placing 
them. One, as before, was seated on the box, and the other three on 
the front of the roof, with a determinate and ample separation from 
the little insulated chair of the guard. This relaxation was conceded 
by way of compensating to Scotland her disadvantages in point of 
population. England^ by the superior density of her population, might 
always count upon a large fund of profits in the fractional trips of 
chance passengers riding for short distances of two or three stages. In 
Scotland this chance counted for much less. And therefore, to make 
good the deficiency, Scotland was allowed a compensatory profit upon 
one extra passenger. 



THE ENGLISH MAIL-COACH 287 

But, recollecting that the Virgilian part of the coachman's 
education might have been neglected, I interpreted so far 
as to say that perhaps at that moment the flames were 
catching hold of our worthy brother and inside passenger, 
Ucalegon. The coachman made no answer, — which is my 5 
own way when a stranger addresses me either in Syriac or 
in Coptic ; but by his faint sceptical smile he seemed to 
insinuate that he knew better, — for that Ucalegon, as it 
happened, was not in the way-bill, and therefore could not 
have been booked. 10 

No dignity is perfect which does not at some point ally 
itself with the mysterious. The connexion of the mail with 
the state and the executive government — a connexion 
obvious, but yet not strictly defined — gave to the whole 
mail establishment an official grandeur which did us service 15 
on the roads, and invested us with seasonable terrors. Not 
the less impressive were those terrors because their legal 
limits were imperfectly ascertained. Look at those turn- 
pike gates : with what deferential hurry, with what an 
obedient start, they fly open at our approach ! Look at 20 
that long line of carts and carters ahead, audaciously usurp- 
ing the very crest of the road. Ah ! traitors, they do not 
hear us as yet; but, as soon as the dreadful blast of our 
horn reaches them with proclamation of our approach, see 
with what frenzy of trepidation they fly to their horses' 25 
heads, and deprecate our wrath by the precipitation of 
their crane-neck quarterings. Treason they feel to be 
their crime ; each individual carter feels himself under the 
ban of confiscation and attainder ; his blood is attainted 
through six generations ; and nothing is wanting but the 30 
headsman and his axe, the block and the sawdust, to close 
up the vista of his horrors. What ! shall it be within bene- 
fit of clergy to delay the king's message on the high road ? 
— to interrupt the great respirations, ebb and flood, systole 



288 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

and diastole, of the national intercourse ? — to endanger the 
safety of tidings running day and night between all nations 
and languages ? Or can it be fancied, amongst the weakest 
of men, that the bodies of the criminals will be given up to 
5 their widows for Christian burial ? Now, the doubts which 
were raised as to our powers did more to wrap them in 
terror, by wrapping them in uncertainty, than could have 
been effected by the sharpest definitions of the law from 
the Quarter Sessions. We, on our parts (we, the collective 

10 mail, I mean), did our utmost to exalt the idea of our 
privileges by the insolence with which we wielded them. 
Whether this insolence rested upon law that gave it a sanc- 
tion, or upon conscious power that haughtily dispensed with 
that sanction, equally it spoke from a potential station ; 

15 and the agent, in each particular insolence of the moment, 
was viewed reverentially, as one. having authority. 

Sometimes after breakfast his Majesty's mail would 
become frisky ; and, in its difficult wheelings amongst the 
intricacies of early markets, it would upset an apple-cart, a 

20 cart loaded with eggs, «S^c. Huge was the affliction and 
dismay, awful was the smash. I, as far as possible, endeav- 
oured in such a case to represent the conscience and moral 
sensibilities of the mail ; and, when wildernesses of eggs 
were lying poached under our horses' hoofs, then would I 

25 stretch forth my hands in sorrow, saying (in words too 
celebrated at that time, from the false echoes ^ of Marengo), 
"Ah! wherefore have we not time to weep over you?" — 
which was evidently impossible, since, in fact, we had not 

"^'^ False echoes" : — Yes, false ! for the words ascribed to Napoleon, 
as breathed to the memory of Desaix, never were uttered at all. They 
stand in the same category of theatrical fictions as the cry of the 
foundering line-of-battle ship Vengeiir, as the vaunt of General Cam- 
bronne at Waterloo, " La Garde meurt, mais ne se rend pas," or as the 
repartees of Talleyrand- 



THE ENGLISH MAIL-COACH 289 

time to laugh over them. Tied to post-office allowance in 
some cases of fifty minutes for eleven miles, could the royal 
mail pretend to undertake the offices of sympathy and con- 
dolence ? Could it be expected to provide tears for the 
accidents of the road ? If even it seemed to trample on 5 
humanity, it did so, I felt, in discharge of its own more 
peremptory duties. 

Upholding the morality of the mail, a fortiori I upheld 
its rights ; as a matter of duty, I stretched to the utter- 
most its privilege of imperial precedency, and astonished 10 
weak minds by the feudal powers which I hinted to be 
lurking constructively in the charters of this proud estab- 
lishment. Once I remember being on the box of the 
Holyhead mail, between Shrewsbury and Oswestry, when 
a tawdry thing from Birmingham, some "Tallyho" or 15 
"Highflyer," all flaunting with green and gold, came up 
alongside of us. What a contrast to our royal simplicity 
of form and colour in this plebeian wretch ! The single 
ornament on our dark ground of chocolate colour was the 
mighty shield of the imperial arms, but emblazoned in pro- 20 
portions as modest as a signet-ring bears to a seal of office. 
Even this was displayed only on a single panel, whispering, 
rather than proclaiming, our relations to the mighty state ; 
whilst the beast from Birmingham, our green-and-gold friend 
from false, fleeting, perjured Brummagem, had as much 25 
writing and painting on its sprawling flanks as would have 
puzzled a decipherer from the tombs of Luxor. For some 
time this Birmingham machine ran along by our side — a 
piece of familiarity that already of itself seemed to me 
sufficiently Jacobinical. But all at once a movement of 30 
the horses announced a desperate intention of leaving us 
behind. " Do you see that ? " I said to the coachman. — 
"I see," was his short answer. He was wide awake, — yet 
he waited longer than seemed prudent ; for the horses of 



290 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

our audacious opponent had a disagreeable air of freshness 
and power. But his motive was loyal ; his wish was that 
the Birmingham conceit should be full-blown before he 
froze it. When that seemed right, he unloosed, or, to speak 
5 by a stronger word, he sprafig, his known resources: he 
slipped our royal horses like cheetahs, or hunting-leopards, 
after the affrighted game. How they could retain such a 
reserve of fiery power after the work they had accomplished 
seemed hard to explain. But on our side, besides the physical 

10 superiority, was a tower of moral strength, namely the king's 
name, "which they upon the adverse faction wanted." 
Passing them without an effort, as it seemed, we threw 
them into the rear with so lengthening an interval 
between us as proved in itself the bitterest mockery of 

15 their presumption; whilst our guard blew back a shatter- 
ing blast of triumph that was really too painfully full of 
derision. 

I mention this little incident for its connexion with what 
followed. A Welsh rustic, sitting behind me, asked if I had 

20 not felt my heart burn within me during the progress of 
the race ? I said, with philosophic calmness, No ; because 
we were not racing with a mail, so that no glory could be 
gained. In fact, it was sufficiently mortifying that such a 
Birmingham thing should dare to challenge us. The Welsh- 

25 man replied that he didn't see that ; for that a cat might 
look at a king, and a Brummagem coach might lawfully 
race the Holyhead mail. ''''Race us, if you like," I replied, 
" though even that has an air of sedition ; but not beat us. 
This would have been treason ; and for its own sake I am | 

30 glad that the 'Tallyho ' was disappointed." So dissatisfied 
did the Welshman seem with this opinion that at last I was 
obliged to tell him a very fine story from one of our elder 
dramatists : viz., that once, in some far Oriental kingdom, 
when the sultan of all the land, with his princes, ladies, and 



THE ENGLISH MAIL-COACH 291 

chief omrahs, were flying their falcons, a hawk suddenly 
flew at a majestic eagle, and, in defiance of the eagle's nat- 
ural advantages, in contempt also of the eagle's traditional 
royalty, and before the whole assembled field of astonished 
spectators from Agra and Lahore, killed the eagle on the 5 
spot. Amazement seized the sultan at the unequal contest, 
and burning admiration for its unparalleled result. He com- 
manded that the hawk should be brought before him ; he 
caressed the bird with enthusiasm ; and he ordered that, 
for the commemoration of his matchless courage, a diadem 10 
of gold and rubies should be solemnly placed on the hawk's 
head, but then that, immediately after this solemn coro- 
nation, the bird should be led off to execution, as the most 
valiant indeed of traitors, but not the less a traitor, as 
having dared to rise rebelliously against his liege lord 15 
and anointed sovereign, the eagle. <'Now," said I to the 
Welshman, "to you and me, as men of refined sensibilities, 
how painful it would have been that this poor Brummagem 
brute, the 'Tallyho,' in the impossible case of a victory 
over us, should have been crowned with Birmingham tinsel, 20 
with paste diamonds and Roman pearls, and then led off 
to instant execution." The Welshman doubted if that 
could be warranted by law. And, when I hinted at the 6th 
of Edward Longshanks, chap. 18, for regulating the prece- 
dency of coaches, as being probably the statute relied 25 
on for the capital punishment of such offences, he replied 
drily that, if the attempt to pass a mail really were treason- 
able, it was a pity that the " Tallyho " appeared to have so 
imperfect an acquaintance with law. 

The modern modes of travelling cannot compare with 30 
the old mail-coach system in grandeur and power. They 
boast of more velocity, — not, however, as a consciousness, 
but as a fact of our lifeless knowledge, resting upon alie7i 
evidence : as, for instance, because somebody says that we 



292 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

have gone fifty miles in the hour, though we are far from 
feeling it as a personal experience ; or upon the evidence 
of a result, as that actually we find ourselves in York four 
hours after leaving London. Apart from such an assertion, 
5 or such a result, I myself am little aware of the pace. But, 
seated on the old mail-coach, we needed no evidence out 
of ourse.lves to indicate the velocity. On this system the 
word was not 7?tagna loquimur^ as upon railways, but vivimus. 
Yes, " magna vivimus " / we do not make verbal ostentation 

10 of our grandeurs, we realise our grandeurs in act, and in the 
very experience of life. The vital experience of the glad 
animal sensibilities made doubts impossible on the question 
of our speed ; we heard our speed, we saw it, we felt it as a 
thrilling; and this speed was not the product of blind insen- 

15 sate agencies, that had no sympathy to give, but was incar- 
nated in the fiery eyeballs of the noblest amongst brutes, 
in his dilated nostril, spasmodic muscles, and thunder- 
beating hoofs. The sensibility of the horse, uttering itself 
in the maniac light of his eye, might be the last vibration 

20 of such a movement ; the glory of Salamanca might be 
the first. But the intervening links that connected them, 
that spread the earthquake of battle into the eyeballs of the 
horse, were the heart of man and its electric thrillings — 
kindling in the rapture of the fiery strife, and then propa- 

25 gating its own tumults by contagious shouts and gestures 
to the heart of his servant the horse. But now, on the new 
system of travelling, iron tubes and boilers have discon- 
nected man's heart from the ministers of his locomotion. 
Nile nor Trafalgar has power to raise an extra bubble in a 

30 steam-kettle. The galvanic cycle is broken up for ever ; man's 
imperial nature no longer sends itself forward through the 
electric sensibility of the horse ; the inter-agencies are gone 
in the mode of communication between the horse and his 
master out of which grew so many aspects of sublimity 



THE ENGLISH MAIL-COACH 293 

under accidents of mists that hid, or sudden blazes that 
revealed, of mobs that agitated, or midnight solitudes that 
awed. Tidings fitted to convulse all nations must hence- 
forwards travel by culinary process ; and the trumpet that 
once announced from afar the laurelled mail, heart-shaking 5 
when heard screaming on the wind and proclaiming itself 
through the darkness to every village or solitary house on 
its route, has now given way for ever to the pot-wallopings 
of the boiler. Thus have perished multiform openings for 
public expressions of interest, scenical yet natural, in great 10 
national tidings, — for revelations of faces and groups that 
could not offer themselves amongst the fluctuating mobs 
of a railway station. The gatherings of gazers about a 
laurelled mail had one centre, and acknowledged one sole 
interest. But the crowds attending at a railway station 15 
have as little unity as running water, and own as many 
centres as there are separate carriages in the train. 

How else, for example, than as a constant watcher for 
the dawn, and for the London mail that in summer months 
entered about daybreak amongst the lawny thickets of 20 
Marlborough forest, couldst thou, sweet Fanny of the Bath 
road, have become the glorified inmate of my dreams ? 
Yet Fanny, as the loveliest young woman for face and per- 
son that perhaps in my whole life I have beheld, merited 
the station which even now, from a distance of forty years, 25 
she holds in my dreams ; yes, thoygh by links of natural 
association she brings along with her a troop of dread- 
ful creatures, fabulous and not fabulous, that are more 
abominable to the heart than Fanny and the dawn are 
delightful. 30 

Miss Fanny of the Bath road, strictly speaking, lived at 
a mile's distance from that road, but came so continually 
to meet the mail that I on my frequent transits rarely 
missed her, and naturally connected her image with the 



294 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

great thoroughfare where only I had ever seen her. Why 
she came so punctually I do not exactly know ; but I 
believe with some burden of commissions, to be executed 
in Bath, which had gathered to her own residence as a cen- 
5 tral rendezvous for converging them. The mail-coachman 
who drove the Bath mail and wore the royal livery^ hap- 
pened to be Fanny's grandfather. A good man he was, 
that loved his beautiful granddaughter, and, loving her 
wisely, was vigilant over her deportment in any case where 

10 young Oxford might happen to be concerned. Did my 
vanity then suggest that I myself, individually, could fall 
within the line of his terrors ? Certainly not, as regarded 
any physical pretensions that I could plead ; for Fanny (as 
a chance passenger from her own neighbourhood once told 

15 me) counted in her train a hundred and ninety-nine pro- 
fessed admirers, if not open aspirants to her favour ; and 
probably not one of the whole brigade but excelled myself 
in personal advantages. Ulysses even, with the unfair 
advantage of his accursed bow, could hardly have under- 

20 taken that amount of suitors. So the danger might have 
seemed slight — only that woman is universally aristocratic; 
it is amongst her nobilities of heart that she is so. Now, 
the aristocratic distinctions in my favour might easily with 
Miss Fanny have compensated my physical deficiencies. 

25 Did I then make love to Fanny ? Why, yes ; about as 

lu Wore the royal livery*' : — The general impression was that the 
royal livery belonged of right to the mail-coachmen as their profes- 
sional dress. But that was an error. To the guard it did belong, I 
believe, and was obviously essential as an official warrant, and as a 
means of instant identification for his person, in the discharge of his 
important public duties. But the coachman, and especially if his 
place in the series did not connect him immediately with London 
and the General Post-Office, obtained the scarlet coat only as an 
honorary distinction after long (or, if not long, trying and special) 



THE ENGLISH MAIL-COACH 295 

much love as one could make whilst the mail was changing 
horses — a process which, ten years later, did not occupy 
above eighty seconds; but then^ — viz., about Waterloo — 
it occupied five times eighty. Now, four hundred seconds 
offer a field quite ample enough for whispering into a young 
woman's ear a great deal of truth, and (by way of paren- 
thesis) some trifle of falsehood. Grandpapa did right, there- 
fore, to watch me. And yet, as happens too often to the 
grandpapas of earth in a contest with the admirers of grand- 
daughters, how vainly would he have watched me had I 
meditated any evil whispers to Fanny ! She, it is my belief, 
would have protected herself against any man's evil sug- 
gestions. But he, as the result showed, could not have 
intercepted the opportunities for such suggestions. Yet, 
why not ? Was he not active ? Was he not blooming ? 
Blooming he was as Fanny herself. 



" Say, all our praises why should lords " 

Stop, that's not the line. 

" Say, all our roses why should girls engross ? " 

The coachman showed rosy blossoms on his face deeper 20 
even than his granddaughter's — his being drawn from the 
ale-cask, Fanny's from the fountains of the dawn. But, in 
spite of his blooming face, some infirmities he had ; and 
one particularly in which he too much resembled a croco- 
dile. This lay in a monstrous inaptitude for turning round. 25 
The crocodile, I presume, owes that inaptitude to the absurd 
length of his back ; but in our grandpapa it arose rather from 
the absurd breadth of his back, combined, possibly, with 
some growing stiffness in his legs. Now, upon this croco- 
dile infirmity of his I planted a human advantage for ten- 30 
dering my homage to Miss Fanny. In defiance of all his 
honourable vigilance, no sooner had he presented to us his 



296 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

mighty Jovian back (what a field for displaying to man- 
kind his royal scarlet!), whilst inspecting professionally 
the buckles, the straps, and the silvery turrets ^ of his har- 
ness, than I raised Miss Fanny's hand to my lips, and, by 
5 the mixed tenderness and respectfulness of my manner, 
caused her easily to understand how happy it would make 
me to rank upon her list as No. 10 or 12 : in which case a 
few casualties amongst her lovers (and, observe, they hanged 
liberally in those days) might have promoted me speedily 

10 to the top of the tree ; as, on the other hand, with how 
much loyalty of submission I acquiesced by anticipation 
in her award, supposing that she should plant me in the 
very rearward of her favour, as No. 199 + i. Most truly 
I loved this beautiful and ingenuous girl; and, had it not 

15 been for the Bath mail, timing all courtships by post-office 
allowance, heaven only knows what might have come of it. 
People talk of being over head and ears in love ; now, the 
mail was the cause that I sank only over ears in love, — 
which, you know, still left a trifle of brain to overlook the 

20 whole conduct of the affair. 

Ah, reader ! when I look back upon those days, it seems 
to me that all things change — all things perish. " Perish 
the roses and the palms of kings " : perish even the crowns 
and trophies of Waterloo: thunder and lightning are not 

25 the thunder and lightning which I remember. Roses are 
degenerating. The Fannies of our island — though this I 
say with reluctance — are not visibly improving ; and the 

1" Turrets ^^ : — As one who loves and venerates Chaucer for his 
unrivalled merits of tenderness, of picturesque characterisation, and 
of narrative skill, I noticed with great pleasure that the word torrettes 
is used by him to designate the little devices through which the reins 
are made to pass. This same word, in the same exact sense, I heard 
uniformly used by many scores of illustrious mail-coachmen to whose 
confidential friendship I had the honour of being admitted in my 
younger days. 



THE ENGLISH MAIL-COACH 297 

Bath road is notoriously superannuated. Crocodiles, you 
will say, are stationary. Mr. Waterton tells me that the 
crocodile does not change, — that a cayman, in fact, or an 
alligator, is just as good for riding upon as he was in the 
time of the Pharaohs. That may be ; but the reason is 5 
that the crocodile does not live fast — he is a slow coach. 
I believe it is generally understood among naturalists that 
the crocodile is a blockhead. It is my own impression 
that the Pharaohs were also blockheads. Now, as the 
Pharaohs and the crocodile domineered over Egyptian 10 
society, this accounts for a singular mistake that prevailed 
through innumerable generations on the Nile. The croco- 
dile made the ridiculous blunder of supposing man to be 
meant chiefly for his own eating. Man, taking a different 
view of the subject, naturally met that mistake by another: 15 
he viewed the crocodile as a thing sometimes to worship, 
but always to run away from. And this continued till 
Mr. Waterton ^ changed the relations between the animals. 
The mode of escaping from the reptile he showed to be 
not by running away, but by leaping on its back booted 20 
and spurred. The two animals had misunderstood each 
other. The use of the crocodile has now been cleared 
up — viz., to be ridden ; and the final cause of man is that 
he may improve the health of the crocodile by riding him 

1 "-Mr. Waterton'" : — Had the reader lived through the last gener- 
ation, he would not need to be told that, some thirty or thirty-five 
years back, Mr. Waterton, a distinguished country gentleman of ancient 
family in Northumberland, publicly mounted and rode in top-boots a 
savage old crocodile, that was restive and very impertinent, but all to 
no purpose. The crocodile jibbed and tried to kick, but vainly. 
He was no more able to throw the squire than Sinbad was to throw 
the old scoundrel who used his back without paying for it, until 
he discovered a mode (slightly immoral, perhaps, though some think 
not) of murdering the old fraudulent jockey, and so circuitously of 
unhorsing him. 



298 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

a-fox-hunting before breakfast. And it is pretty certain 
that any crocodile who has been regularly hunted through 
the season, and is master of the weight he carries, will take 
a six-barred gate now as well as ever he would have done 
5 in the infancy of the pyramids. 

If, therefore, the crocodile does ?iot change, all things else 
undeniably do : even the shadow of the pyramids grows less. 
And often the restoration in vision of Fanny and the Bath 
road makes me too pathetically sensible of that truth. Out 

10 of the darkness, if I happen to call back the image of Fanny, 
up rises suddenly from a gulf of forty years a rose in June ; 
or, if I think for an instant of the rose in June, up rises 
the heavenly face of Fanny, One after the other, like the 
antiphonies in the choral service, rise Fanny and the rose in 

15 June, then back again the rose in June and Fanny. Then 
come both together, as in a chorus — roses and Fannies, 
Fannies and roses, without end, thick as blossoms in para- 
dise. Then comes a venerable crocodile, in a royal livery 
of scarlet and gold, with sixteen capes ; and the crocodile 

20 is driving four-in-hand from the box of the Bath mail. And 
suddenly we upon the mail are pulled up by a mighty dial, 
sculptured with the hours, that mingle with the heavens 
and the heavenly host. Then all at once we are arrived at 
Marlborough forest, amongst the lovely households ^ of the 

25 roe-deer ; the deer and their fawns retire into the dewy 
thickets ; the thickets are rich with roses ; once again the 
roses call up the sweet countenance of Fanny; and she, 

1 " Households " ; — Roe-deer do not congregate in herds like the 
fallow or the red deer, but by separate families, parents and children ; 
which feature of approximation to the sanctity of human hearths, 
added to their comparatively miniature and graceful proportions, con- 
ciliates to them an interest of peculiar tenderness, supposing even that 
this beautiful creature is less characteristically impressed with the 
grandeurs of savage and forest life. 



THE ENGLISH MAIL-COACH 299 

being the granddaughter of a crocodile, awakens a dreadful 
host of semi-legendary animals — griffins, dragons, basilisks, 
sphinxes — till at length the whole vision of fighting images 
crowds into one towering armorial shield, a vast emblazonry 
of human charities and human loveliness that have perished, 5 
but quartered heraldically with unutterable and demoniac 
natures, whilst over all rises, as a surmounting crest, one 
fair female hand, with the forefinger pointing, in sweet, 
sorrowful admonition, upwards to heaven, where is sculp- 
tured the eternal writing which proclaims the frailty of 10 
earth and her children. 

Going Down with Victory 

But the grandest chapter of our experience within the 
whole mail-coach service was on those occasions when we 
went down from London with the news of victory.! A 
period of about ten years stretched from Trafalgar to 15 
Waterloo; the second and third years of which period 
(1806 and 1807) were comparatively sterile; but the other 
nine (from 1805 to 18 15 inclusively) furnished a long suc- 
cession of victories, the least of which, in such a contest of 
Titans, had an inappreciable value of position : partly for 20 
its absolute interference with the plans of our enemy, but 
still more from its keeping alive through central Europe 
the sense of a deep-seated vulnerability in France. Even 
to tease the coasts of our enemy, to mortify them by con- 
tinual blockades, to insult them by capturing if it were but 25 
a baubling schooner under the eyes of their arrogant armies, 
repeated from time to time a sullen proclamation of power 
lodged in one quarter to which the hopes of Christendom 
turned in secret. How much more loudly must this procla- 
mation have spoken in the audacity^ of having bearded the 30 

^^^ Audacity" : — Such the French accounted it; and it has struck 
me that Soult would not have been so popular in London, at the period 



300 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

elite of their troops, and having beaten them in pitched 

battles ! Five years of life it was worth paying down for 

the privilege of an outside place on a mail-coach, when 

' carrying down the first tidings of any such event. And it 

5 is to be noted that, from our insular situation, and the mul- 
titude of our frigates disposable for the rapid transmission 
of intelligence, rarely did any unauthorised rumour steal 
away a prelibation from the first aroma of the regular 
despatches. The government news was generally the 

lo earliest news. 

From eight p.m. to fifteen or twenty minutes later imagine 
the mails assembled on parade in Lombard Street ; where, 
at that time, ^ and not in St. Martin's-le-Grand, was seated 
the General Post-Office. In what exact strength we mus- 

15 tered I do not remember; but, from the length of each sep- 
arate attelage^ we filled the street, though a long one, and 
though we were drawn up in double file. On any night the 
spectacle was beautiful. The absolute perfection of all the 
appointments about the carriages and the harness, their 

20 strength, their brilliant cleanliness, their beautiful sim- 
plicity — but, more than all, the royal magnificence of the 
horses — were what might first have fixed the attention. 

of her present Majesty's coronation, or in Manchester, on occasion of 
his visit to that town, if they had been aware of the insolence with which 
he spoke of us in notes written at intervals from the field of Waterloo. 
As though it had been mere felony in our army to look a French one 
in the face, he said in more notes than one, dated from two to four p.m. 
on the field of Waterloo, " Here are the English — we have them ; they 
are caught en flagrant delit." Yet no man should have known us better ; 
no man had drunk deeper from the cup of humiliation than Soult had 
in 1809, when ejected by us with headlong violence from Oporto, and 
pursued through a long line of wrecks to the frontier of Spain; and 
subsequently at Albuera, in the bloodiest of recorded battles, to say 
nothing of Toulouse, he should have learned our pretensions. 
1 " At that time " : — I speak of the era previous to Waterloo. 



THE ENGLISH MAIL-COACH 301 

Every carriage on every morning in the year was taken 
down to an official inspector for examination : wheels, 
axles, linchpins, pole, glasses, lamps, were all critically 
probed and tested. Every part of every carriage had been 
cleaned, every horse had been groomed, with as much rigour 5 
as if they belonged to a private gentleman ; and that part 
of the spectacle offered itself always. But the night before 
us is a night of victory ; and, behold ! to the ordinary dis- 
play what a heart-shaking addition ! — horses, men, car- 
riages, all are dressed in laurels and flowers, oak-leaves and 10 
ribbons. The guards, as being officially his Majesty's ser- 
vants, and of the coachmen such as are within the privilege 
of the post-office, wear the royal liveries of course ; and, as 
it is summer (for all the land victories were naturally won 
in summer), they wear, on this fine evening, these liveries 15 
exposed to view, without any covering of upper coat^. 
Such a costume, and the elaborate arrangement of the 
laurels in their hats, dilate their hearts, by giving to them 
openly a personal connexion with the great news in which 
already they have the general interest of patriotism. That 20 
great national sentiment surmounts and quells all sense of 
ordinary distinctions. Those passengers who happen to 
be gentlemen are now hardly to be distinguished as such 
except by dress ; for the usual reserve of their manner in 
speaking to the attendants has on this night melted away. 25 
One heart, one pride, one glory, connects every man by the 
transcendent bond of his national blood. The spectators, 
who are numerous beyond precedent, express their sym- 
pathy with these fervent feelings by continual hurrahs. 
Every moment are shouted aloud by the post-office ser- 30 
vants, and summoned to draw up, the great ancestral names 
of cities known to history through a thousand years — 
Lincoln, Winchester, Portsmouth, Gloucester, Oxford, Bris- 
tol, Manchester, York, Newcastle, Edinburgh, Glasgow, 



302 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

Perth, Stirling, Aberdeen — expressing the grandeur of the 
empire by the antiquity of its towns, and the grandeur of 
the mail establishment by the diffusive radiation of its sep- 
arate missions. Every moment you hear the thunder of 
5 lids locked down upon the mail-bags. That sound to each 
individual mail is the signal for drawing off ; which process 
is the finest part of the entire spectacle. Then come the 
horses into play. Horses ! can these be horses that bound 
off with the action and gestures of leopards ? What stir ! — 
lo what sea-like ferment! — what a thundering of wheels! — 
what a trampling of hoofs ! — what a sounding of trumpets ! 

— what farewell cheers — what redoubling peals of brotherly 
congratulation, connecting the name of the particular mail 

— '' Liverpool for ever ! " — with the name of the particular 
15 victory — " Badajoz for ever ! " or " Salamanca for ever ! " 

The half-slumbering consciousness that all night long, and 
all the next day — perhaps for even a longer period — many 
of these mails, like fire racing along a train of gunpowder, 
will be kindling at every instant new successions of burn- 
20 ing joy, has an obscure effect of multiplying the victory 
itself, by multiplying to the imagination into infinity the 
stages of its progressive diffusion. A fiery arrow seems to 
be let loose, which from that moment is destined to travel, 
without intermission, westwards for three hundred ^ miles 

1" Three hundred'*'' : — Of necessity, this scale of measurement, to 
an American, if he happens to be a thoughtless man, must sound ludi- 
crous. Accordingly, I remember a case in which an American writer 
indulges himself in the luxury of a little fibbing, by ascribing to an 
Englishman a pompous account of the Thames, constructed entirely 
upon American ideas of grandeur, and concluding in something like 
these terms: — "And, sir, arriving at London, this mighty father of 
rivers attains a breadth of at least two furlongs, having, in its winding 
course, traversed the astonishing distance of one hundred and seventy 
miles." And this the candid American thinks it fair to contrast with 
the scale of the Mississippi. Now, it is hardly worth while to answer 



THE ENGLISH MAIL-COACH 303 

— northwards for six hundred; and the sympathy of our 
Lombard Street friends at parting is exalted a hundredfold 
by a sort of visionary sympathy with the yet slumbering 
sympathies which in so vast a succession we are going to 
awake. 5 

Liberated from the embarrassments of the city, and 
issuing into the broad uncrowded avenues of the northern 
suburbs, we soon begin to enter upon our natural pace of 
ten miles an hour. In the broad light of the summer even- 
ing, the sun, perhaps, only just at the point of setting, we 10 
are seen from every storey of every house. Heads of every 
age crowd to the windows ; young and old understand the 
language of our victorious symbols ; and rolling volleys of 
sympathising cheers run along us, behind us, and before us. 
The beggar, rearing himself against the wall, forgets his 15 

a pure fiction gravely ; else one might say that no Englishman out of 
Bedlam ever thought of looking in an island for the rivers of a conti- 
nent, nor, consequently, could have thought of looking for the peculiar 
grandeur of the Thames in the length of its course, or in the extent of 
soil which it drains. Yet, if he had been so absurd, the American might 
have recollected that a river, not to be compared with the Thames even 
as to volume of water — viz., the Tiber — has contrived to make itself 
heard of in this world for twenty-five centuries to an extent not reached 
as yet by any river, however corpulent, of his own land. The glory of 
the Thames is measured by the destiny of the population to which it 
ministers, by the commerce which it supports, by the grandeur of the 
empire in which, though far from the largest, it is the most influential 
stream. Upon some such scale, and not by a transfer of Columbian 
standards, is the course of our English mails to be valued. The 
American may fancy the effect of his own valuations to our English 
ears by supposing the case of a Siberian glorifying his country in these 
terms : — " These wretches, sir, in France and England, cannot march 
half a mile in any direction without finding a house where food can be 
had and lodging ; whereas such is the noble desolation of our magnifi- 
cent country that in many a direction for a thousand miles I will engage 
that a dog shall not find shelter from a snow-storm, nor a wren find an 
apology for breakfast." 



304 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

lameness — real or assumed — thinks not of his whining 
trade, but stands erect, with bold exulting smiles, as we 
pass him. The victory has healed him, and says. Be thou 
whole ! Women and children, from garrets alike and cellars, 
5 through infinite London, look down or look up with loving 
eyes upon our gay ribbons and our martial laurels ; some- 
times kiss their hands ; sometimes hang out, as signals of 
affection, pocket-handkerchiefs, aprons, dusters, anything 
that, by catching the summer breezes, will express an aerial 

10 jubilation. On the London side of Barnet, to which we 
draw near within a few minutes after nine, observe that 
private carriage which is approaching us. The weather 
being so warm, the glasses are all down ; and one may read, 
as on the stage of a theatre, everything that goes on within. 

15 It contains three ladies — one likely to be "mamma," 
and two of seventeen or eighteen, who are probably her 
daughters. What lovely animation, what beautiful unpre- 
meditated pantomime, explaining to us every syllable that 
passes, in these ingenuous girls ! By the sudden start 

20 and raising of the hands on first discovering our laurelled 
equipage, by the sudden movement and appeal to the elder 
lady from both of them, and by the heightened colour on 
their animated countenances, we can almost hear them 
saying, " See, see ! Look at their laurels ! Oh, mamma ! 

25 there has been a great battle in Spain ; and it has been a 
great victory." In a moment we are on the point of pass- 
ing them. We passengers — I on the box, and the two 
on the roof behind me — raise our hats to the ladies ; the 
coachman makes his professional salute with the whip ; the 

30 guard even, though punctilious on the matter of his dignity 
as an officer under the crown, touches his hat. The ladies 
move to us, in return, with a winning graciousness of 
gesture ; all smile on each side in a way that nobody could 
misunderstand, and that nothing short of a grand national 



THE ENGLISH MAIL-COACH 305 

sympathy could so instantaneously prompt. Will these 
ladies say that we are nothing to them ? Oh no ; they will 
not say that. They cannot deny — they do not deny — 
that for this night they are our sisters ; gentle or simple, 
scholar or illiterate servant, for twelve hours to come, 5 
we on the outside have the honour to be their brothers. 
Those poor women, again, who stop to gaze upon us with 
delight at the entrance of Barnet, and seem, by their air of 
weariness, to be returning from labour — do you mean to 
say that they are washerwomen and charwomen ? Oh, my 10 
poor friend, you are quite mistaken. I assure you they 
stand in a far higher rank ; for this one night they feel 
themselves by birthright to be daughters of England, and 
answer to no humbler title. 

Every joy, however, even rapturous joy — such is the sad 15 
law of earth — may carry with it grief, or fear of grief, to 
some. Three miles beyond Barnet, we see approaching us 
another private carriage, nearly repeating the circumstances 
of the former case. Here, also, the glasses are all down ; 
here, also, is an elderly lady seated ; but the two daughters 20 
are missing ; for the single young person sitting by the lady's 
side seems to be an attendant — so I judge from her dress, 
and her air of respectful reserve. The lady is in mourning ; 
and her countenance expresses sorrow. At first she does not 
look up ; so that I believe she is not aware of our approach, 25 
until she hears the measured beating of our horses' hoofs. 
Then she raises her eyes to settle them painfully on our 
triumphal equipage. Our decorations explain the case to her 
at once ; but she beholds them with apparent anxiety, or 
even with terror. Some time before this, I, finding it diffi- 30 
cult to hit a flying mark when embarrassed by the coach- 
man's person and reins intervening, had given to the guard 
a " Courier " evening paper, containing the gazette, for the 
next carriage that might pass. Accordingly he tossed it 



3o6 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCEY 

in, so folded that the huge capitals expressing some such 
legend as (,lorious victory might catch the eye at once. 
To see the paper, however, at all, interpreted as it was by 
our ensigns of triumph, explained everything; and, if the 
5 guard were right in thinking the lady to have received it 
with a gesture of horror, it could not be doubtful that she 
had suffered some deep personal affliction in connexion with 
this Spanish war. 

Here, now, was the case of one who, having formerly 

10 suffered, might, erroneously perhaps, be distressing herself 
with anticipations of another similar suffering. That same 
night, and hardly three hours later, occurred the reverse 
case. A poor woman, who too probably would find herself, in 
a day or two, to have suffered the heaviest of afflictions by 

15 the battle, blindly allowed herself to express an exultation 
so unmeasured in the news and its details as gave to her the 
appearance which amongst Celtic Highlanders is called fey. 
This was at some little town where we changed horses an 
hour or two after midnight. Some fair or wake had kept 

20 the people up out of their beds, and had occasioned a partial 
illumination of the stalls and booths, presenting an unusual 
but very impressive effect. We saw many lights moving 
about as we drew near ; and perhaps the most striking scene 
on the whole route was our reception at this place. The 

25 flashing of torches and the beautiful radiance of blue lights 
(technically, Bengal lights) upon the heads of our horses ; 
the fine effect of such a showery and ghostly illumination 
falling upon our flowers and glittering laurels ^ ; whilst all 
around ourselves, that formed a centre of light, the darkness 

30 gathered on the rear and flanks in massy blackness : these 
optical splendours, together with the prodigious enthusiasm 

"^"•^ Glittering laurels ^^ : — I must observe that the colour of green 
suffers almost a spiritual change and exaltation under the effect of 
Bengal lights. 



THE ENGLISH MAIL-COACH 307 

of the people, composed a picture at once scenical and afifect- 
ing, theatrical and holy. As we staid for three or four 
minutes, I alighted ; and immediately from a dismantled 
stall in the street, where no doubt she had been presiding 
through the earlier part of the night, advanced eagerly a 5 
middle-aged woman. The sight of my newspaper it was 
that had drawn her attention upon myself. The victory 
which we were carrying down to the provinces on this 
occasion was the imperfect one of Talavera — imperfect for 
its results, such was the virtual treachery of the Spanish 10 
general, Cuesta, but not imperfect in its ever-memorable 
heroism. 1 told her the main outline of the battle. The 
agitation of her enthusiasm had been so conspicuous when 
listening, and when first applying for information, that I 
could not but ask her if she had not some relative in the 15 
Peninsular army. Oh yes ; her only son was there. In 
what regiment ? He was a trooper in the 23d Dragoons. 
My heart sank within me as she made that answer. This 
sublime regiment, which an Englishman should never men- 
tion without raising his hat to their memory, had made the 20 
most memorable and effective charge recorded in military 
annals. They leaped their horses — over a trench where 
they could ; into it, and with the result of death or muti- 
lation, when they could not. What proportion cleared the 
trench is nowhere stated. Those who did closed up and 25 
went down upon the enemy with such divinity of fervour 
(I use the word diviiiity by design : the inspiration of God 
must have prompted this movement for those whom even 
then He was calling to His presence) that two results fol- 
lowed. As regarded the enemy, this 23d Dragoons, not, I 30 
believe, originally three hundred and fifty strong, paralysed 
a French column six thousand strong, then ascended the 
hill, and fixed the gaze of the whole French army. As 
regarded themselves, the 23d were supposed at first to have 



3o8 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

been barely not annihilated ; but eventually, I believe, about 
one in four survived. And this, then, was the regiment — 
a regiment already for some hours glorified and hallowed 
to the ear of all London, as lying stretched, by a large 
5 majority, upon one bloody aceldama — in which the young 
trooper served whose mother was now talking in a spirit 
of such joyous enthusiasm. Did I tell her the truth "i Had 
I the heart to break up her dreams ? No. To-morrow, said 
I to myself — to-morrow, or the next day, will publish the 

lo worst. For one night more wherefore should she not sleep 
in peace ? After to-morrow the chances are too many that 
peace will forsake her pillow. This brief respite, then, let 
her owe to 7fiy gift and my forbearance. But, if I told her 
not of the bloody price that had been paid, not therefore 

15 was I silent on the contributions from her son's regiment 
to that day's service and glory. I showed her not the 
funeral banners under which the noble regiment was sleep- 
ing. I lifted not the overshadowing laurels from the bloody 
trench in which horse and rider lay mangled together. But 

20 I told her how these dear children of England, officers and 
privates, had leaped their horses over all obstacles as gaily 
as hunters to the morning's chase. I told her how they 
rode their horses into the midst of death, — saying to 
myself, but not saying to her, " and laid down their young 

25 lives for thee, O mother England! as willingly — poured 
out their noble blood as cheerfully — as ever, after a long 
day's sport, when infants, they had rested their weary heads 
upon their mother's knees, or had sunk to sleep in her arms." 
Strange it is, yet true, that she seemed to have no fears for 

30 her son's safety, even after this knowledge that the 23d 
Dragoons had been memorably engaged ; but so much was 
she enraptured by the knowledge that his regiment, and 
therefore that he, had rendered conspicuous service in the 
dreadful conflict — a service which had actually made them, 



THE ENGLISH MAIL-COACH 



309 



within the last twelve hours, the foremost topic of conver- 
sation in London — so absolutely was fear swallowed up in 
joy — that, in the mere simplicity of her fervent nature, the 
poor woman threw her arms round my neck, as she thought 
of her son, and gave to me the kiss which secretly was meant 
for him. 



Section II — The Vision of Sudden Death 

What is to be taken\as the predominant opinion of man, 
reflective and philosophic, upon sudden death ? It is 
remarkable that, in different conditions of society, sudden 
death has been variously regarded as the consummation 10 
of an earthly career most fervently to be desired, or, again, 
as that consummation which is with most horror to be 
deprecated. Caesar the Dictator, at his last dinner-party 
{ccena), on the very evening before his assassination, when 
the minutes of his earthly career were numbered, being 15 
asked what death, in his judgment, might be pronounced 
the most eligible, replied "That which should be most 
sudden." On the other hand, the divine Litany of our 
English Church, when breathing forth supplications, as if 
in some representative character, for the whole human race 20 
prostrate before God, places such a death in the very van 
of horrors : " From lightning and tempest ; from plague, 
pestilence, and famine ; from battle and murder, and from 
SUDDEN DEATH- — Good Lord, deliver tisy Sudden death is 
here made to crown the climax in a grand ascent of calam- 25 
ities ; it is ranked among the last of curses ; and yet by the 
noblest of Romans it was ranked as the first of blessings. 
In that difference most readers will see little more than the 
essential difference between Christianity and Paganism. 
But this, on consideration, I doubt. The Christian Church 30 
may be right in its estimate of sudden death ; and it is a 



3IO SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

natural feeling, though after all it may also be an infirm 
one, to wish for a quiet dismissal from life, as that which 
seems most reconcilable with meditation, with penitential 
retrospects, and with the humilities of farewell prayer. 
S There does not, however, occur to me any direct scriptural 
warrant for this earnest petition of the English Litany, 
unless under a special construction of the word "sudden." 
It seems a petition indulged rather and conceded to human 
infirmity than exacted from human piety. It is not so much 

lo a doctrine built upon the eternities of the Christian sys- 
tem as a plausible opinion built upon special varieties of 
physical temperament. Let that, however, be as it may, 
two remarks suggest themselves as prudent restraints upon 
a doctrine which else may wander, and has wandered, into 

15 an uncharitable superstition. The first is this: that many 
people are likely to exaggerate the horror of a sudden death 
from the disposition to lay a false stress upon words or acts 
simply because by an accident they have become Jinal words 
or acts. If a man dies, for instance, by some sudden death 

20 when he happens to be intoxicated, such a death is falsely 
regarded with peculiar horror; as though the intoxication 
were suddenly exalted into a blasphemy. But that is 
unphilosophic. The man was, or he was not, habitually a 
drunkard. If not, if his intoxication were a solitary acci- 

25 dent, there can be no reason for allowing special emphasis 
to this act simply because through misfortune it became 
his final act. Nor, on the other hand, if it were no acci- 
dent, but one of his habitual transgressions, will it be the 
more habitual or the more a transgression because some 

30 sudden calamity, surprising him, has caused this habitual 
transgression to be also a final one. Could the man have 
had any reason even dimly to foresee his own sudden death, 
there would have been a new feature in his act of intem- 
perance — a feature of presumption and irreverence, as in 



THE ENGLISH MAIL-COACH 31 1 

one that, having known himself drawing near to the pres- 
ence of God, should have suited his demeanour to an 
expectation so awful. But this is no part of the case 
supposed. And the only new element in the man's act 
is not any element of special immorality, but simply of 5 
special misfortune. 

The other remark has reference to the meaning of the 
word sudde?i. Very possibly Caesar and the Christian 
Church do not differ in the way supposed, — that is, do 
not differ by any difference of doctrine as between Pagan 10 
and Christian views of the moral temper appropriate to 
death ; but perhaps they are contemplating different cases. 
Both contemplate a violent death, a Bta^amTos — death 
that is /3tatos, or, in other words, death that is brought 
about, not by internal and spontaneous change, but by 15 
active force having its origin from without. In this 
meaning the two authorities agree. Thus far they are in 
harmony. But the difference is that the Roman by the 
word " sudden " means unlingering^ whereas the Christian 
Litany by "sudden death" means a death without wanmig, 20 
consequently without any available summons to religious 
preparation. The poor mutineer who kneels down to gather 
into his heart the bullets from twelve firelocks of his pity- 
ing comrades dies by a most sudden death in Caesar's sense ; 
one shock, one mighty spasm, one (possibly not one) groan, 25 
and all is over. But, in the sense of the Litany, the muti- 
neer's death is far from sudden : his offence originally, his 
imprisonment, his trial, the interval between his sentence 
and its execution, having all furnished him with separate 
warnings of his fate — having all summoned him to meet 3° 
it with solemn preparation. 

Here at once, in this sharp verbal distinction, we 
comprehend the faithful earnestness with which a holy 
Christian Church pleads on behalf of her poor departing 



312 SELECTIONS EROM DE QUINCE Y 

children that God would vouchsafe to them the last great 
privilege and distinction possible on a death-bed, viz., 
the opportunity of untroubled preparation for facing this 
mighty trial. Sudden death, as a mere variety in the modes 

5 of dying where death in some shape is inevitable, proposes 
a question of choice which, equally in the Roman and the 
Christian sense, will be variously answered according to 
each man's variety of temperament. Meantime, one aspect 
of sudden death there is, one modification, upon which no 

lo doubt can arise, that of all martyrdoms it is the most agi- 
tating — viz., where it surprises a man under circumstances 
which offer (or which seem to offer) some hurrying, flying, 
inappreciably minute chance of evading it. Sudden as the 
danger which it affronts must be any effort by which such 

15 an evasion can be accomplished. Even that, even the sick- 
ening necessity for hurrying in extremity where all hurry 
seems destined to be vain, — even that anguish is liable to 
a hideous exasperation in one particular case : viz., where 
the appeal is made not exclusively to the instinct of self- 

20 preservation, but to the conscience, on behalf of some other 
life besides your own, accidentally thrown upon your pro- 
tection. To fail, to collapse in a service merely your own, 
might seem comparatively venial ; though, in fact, it is far 
from venial. But to fail in a case where Providence has 

25 suddenly thrown into your hands the final interests of 
another, — a fellow-creature shuddering between the gates 
of life and death : this, to a man of apprehensive conscience, 
would mingle the misery of an atrocious criminality with 
the misery of a bloody calamity. You are called upon, by 

30 the case supposed, possibly to die, but to die at the very 
moment when, by any even partial failure or effeminate 
collapse of your energies, you will be self-denounced as a 
murderer. You had but the twinkling of an eye for your 
effort, and that effort might have been unavailing; but to 



THE ENGLISH MAIL-COACH 31;^ 

have risen to the level of such an effort would have rescued 
you, though not from dying, yet from dying as a traitor to 
your final and farewell duty. 

The situation here contemplated exposes a dreadful ulcer, 
lurking far down in the depths of human nature. It is not 5 
that men generally are summoned to face such awful trials. 
But potentially, and in shadowy outline, such a trial is mov- 
ing subterraneously in perhaps all men's natures. Upon the 
secret mirror of our dreams such a trial is darkly projected, 
perhaps, to every one of us. That dream, so familiar to 10 
childhood, of meeting a lion, and, through languishing pros- 
tration in hope and the energies of hope, that constant sequel 
of lying down before the lion publishes the secret frailty of 
human nature — reveals its deep-seated falsehood to itself — 
records its abysmal treachery. Perhaps not one of us escapes 1 5 
that dream ; perhaps, as by some sorrowful doom of man, 
that dream repeats for every one of us, through every gen- 
eration, the original temptation in Eden. Every one of us, 
in this dream, has a bait offered to the infirm places of his 
own individual will ; once again a snare is presented for 2c 
tempting him into captivity to a luxury of ruin ; once again, 
as in aboriginal Paradise, the man falls by his own choice ; 
again, by infinite iteration, the ancient earth groans to 
Heaven, through her secret caves, over the weakness of her 
child. " Nature, from her seat, sighing through all her 25 
works," again '' gives signs of woe that all is lost " ; and again 
the counter-sigh is repeated to the sorrowing heavens for the 
endless rebellion against God. It is not without probability 
that in the world of dreams every one of us ratifies for him- 
self the original transgression. In dreams, perhaps under 30 
some secret conflict of the midnight sleeper, lighted up to the 
consciousness at the time, but darkened to the memory as 
soon as all is finished, each several child of our mysterious 
race completes for himself the treason of the aboriginal fall. 



3*14 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

^ The incident, so memorable in itself by its features of 
horror, and so scenical by its grouping for the eye, which 
furnished the text for this reverie upon Sudden Death 
occurred to myself in the dead of night, as a solitary spec- 
5 tator, when seated on the box of the Manchester and Glas- 
gow mail, in the second or third summer after Waterloo. I 
find it necessary to relate the circumstances, because they 
are such as could not have occurred unless under a singular 
combination of accidents. In those days, the oblique and 
10 lateral communications with many rural post-offices were so 
arranged, either through necessity or through defect of sys- 
tem, as to make it requisite for the main north-western mail 
(/.«f., the dowft mail) on reaching Manchester to halt for a 
number of hours; how many, I do not remember; six or 
15 seven, I think; but the result was that, in the ordinary 
course, the mail recommenced its journey northwards about 
midnight. Wearied with the long detention at a gloomy 
hotel, I walked out about eleven o'clock at night for the 
sake of fresh air; meaning to fall in with the mail and 
20 resume my seat at the post-office. The night, however, 
being yet dark, as the moon had scarcely risen, and the 
streets being at that hour empty, so as to offer no oppor- 
tunities for asking the road, I lost my way, and did not 
reach the post-office until it was considerably past mid- 
25 night; but, to my great relief (as it was important for me 
to be in Westmoreland by the morning), I saw in the huge 
saucer eyes of the mail, blazing through the gloom, an evi- 
dence that my chance was not yet lost. Past the time it 
was; but, by some rare accident, the mail was not even 
30 yet ready to start. I ascended to my seat on the box, 
where my cloak was still lying as it had lain at the Bridge- 
water Arms. I had left it there in imitation of a nautical 
discoverer, who leaves a bit of bunting on the shore of 
his discovery, by way of warning off the ground the whole 



THE ENGLISH MAIL-COACH 315 

human race, and notifying to the Christian and the heathen 
worlds, with his best compliments, that he has hoisted his 
pocket-handkerchief once and for ever upon that virgin 
soil : thenceforward claiming the jus dominii to the top of 
the atmosphere above it, and also the right of driving 5 
shafts to the centre of the earth below it ; so that all 
people found after this warning either aloft in upper cham- 
bers of the atmosphere, or groping in subterraneous shafts, 
or squatting audaciously on the surface of the soil, will be 
treated as trespassers — kicked, that is to say, or decap- 10 
itated, as circumstances may suggest, by their very faithful 
servant, the owner of the said pocket-handkerchief. In the 
present case, it is probable that my cloak might not have 
been respected, and the jus gentium might have been cruelly 
violated in my person — for, in the dark, people commit 15 
deeds of darkness, gas being a great ally of morality; but 
it so happened that on this night there was no other out- 
side passenger; and thus the crime, which else was but 
too probable, missed fire for want of a criminal. 
V Having mounted the box, I took a small quantity of 20 
laudanum, having already travelled two hundred and fifty 
miles — viz., from a point seventy miles beyond London. In 
the taking of laudanum there was nothing extraordinary. 
But by accident it drew upon me the special attention of my 
assessor on the box, the coachman. And in that also there 25 
was nothing extraordinary. But by accident, and with great 
delight, it drew my own attention to the fact that this 
coachman was a monster in point of bulk, and that he had 
but one eye. In fact, he had been foretold by Virgil as 

" Monstrum horrendum, informe, ingens, cui lumen ademptum." 30 

He answered to the conditions in every one of the items: 
— I, a monster he was ; 2, dreadful ; 3, shapeless ; 4, huge; 
5, who had lost an eye. But why should that delight me ? 



3i6 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

Had he been one of the Calendars in the *' Arabian Nights," 
and had paid down his eye as the price of his criminal curi- 
osity, what right had / to exult in his misfortune ? I did 
not exult ; I delighted in no man's punishment, though it 

5 were even merited. But these personal distinctions (Nos. i, 
2> 3> 4) 5) identified in an instant an old friend of mine 
whom I had known in the south for some years as the most 
masterly of mail-coachmen. - He was the man in all Europe 
that could (if a?iy could) have driven six-in-hand full gallop 

10 over Al Sirat — that dreadful bridge of Mahomet, with no 
side battlements, and of extra room not enough for a razor's 
edge — leading right across the bottomless gulf. Under 
this eminent man, whom in Greek I cognominated Cyclops 
Diphrelates (Cyclops the Charioteer), I, and others known 

15 to me, studied the diphrelatic art. Excuse, reader, a word 
too elegant to be pedantic. As a pupil, though I paid extra 
fees, it is to be lamented that I did not stand high in his 
esteem. It showed his dogged honesty (though, observe, 
not his discernment) that he could not see my merits. Let 

20 us excuse his absurdity in this particular by remembering 
his want of an eye. Doubtless that made him blind to my 
merits. In the art of conversation, however, he admitted 
that I had the whip-hand of him. On the present occasion 
great joy was at our meeting. But what was Cyclops doing 

25 here .^ Had the medical men recommended northern air, 
or how ? I collected, from such explanations as he volun- 
teered, that he had an interest at stake in some suit-at-law 
now pending at Lancaster; so that probably he had got 
himself transferred to this station for the purpose of con- 

30 necting with his professional pursuits an instant readiness 
for the calls of his lawsuit. ' 

Meantime, what are we stopping for ? Surely we have 
now waited long enough. Oh, this procrastinating mail, and 
this procrastinating post-office ! Can't they take a lesson 



THE ENGLISH MAIL-COACH 317 

upon that subject from me ? Some people have called me 
procrastinating. Yet you are witness, reader, that I was 
here kept waiting for the post-office. Will the post-office lay 
its hand on its heart, in its moments of sobriety, and assert 
that ever it waited for me ? What are they about ? The 5 
guard tells me that there is a large extra accumulation of 
foreign mails this night, owing to irregularities caused by 
war, by wind, by weather, in the packet service, which as 
yet does not benefit at all by steam. For an extra hour, it 
seems, the post-office has been engaged in threshing out the 10 
pure wheaten correspondence of Glasgow, and winnowing 
it from the chaff of all baser intermediate towns. But at 
last all is finished. Sound your horn, guard ! Manchester, 
good-bye ! we've lost an hour by your criminal conduct at 
the post-office: which, however, though I do not mean to 15 
part with a serviceable ground of complaint, and one which 
really is such for the horses, to me secretly is an advantage, 
since it compels us to look sharply for this lost hour 
amongst the next eight or nine, and to recover it (if we 
can) at the rate of one mile extra per hour. Off we are at 20 
last, and at eleven miles an hour ; and for the moment I 
detect no changes in the energy or in the skill of Cyclops. 

From Manchester to Kendal, which virtually (though not 
in law) is the capital of Westmoreland, there were at this 
time seven stages of eleven miles each. The first five of 25 
these, counting from Manchester, terminate in Lancaster ; 
which is therefore fifty-five miles north of Manchester, and 
the same distance exactly from Liverpool. The first three 
stages terminate in Preston (called, by way of distinction 
from other towns of that name. Proud Preston ) ; at which 30 
place it is that the separate roads from Liverpool and from 
Manchester to the north become confluent.^ Within these 

'^'^ Con^uent" : — Suppose a capital Y (the Pythagorean letter): 
Lancaster is at the foot of this letter; Liverpool at the top of the 



3i8 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

first three stages lay the foundation, the progress, and termi- 
nation of our night's adventure.^H During the first stage, I 
found out that Cyclops was mortal : he was liable to the 
shocking affection of sleep — a thing which previously I had 

5 never suspected. If a man indulges in the vicious habit of 
sleeping, all the skill in aurigation of Apollo himself, with 
the horses of Aurora to execute his notions, avails him noth- 
ing. " Oh, Cyclops ! " I exclaimed, " thou art mortal. My 
friend, thou snorest." Through the first eleven miles, how- 

10 ever, this infirmity — which I grieve to say that he shared 
with the whole Pagan Pantheon — betrayed itself only by 
brief snatches. On waking up, he made an apology for 
himself which, instead of mending matters, laid open a 
gloomy vista of coming disasters. The summer assizes, he 

15 reminded me, were now going on at Lancaster: in conse- 
quence of which for three nights and three days he had 
not lain down on a bed. During the day he was waiting 
for his own summons as a witness on the trial in which 
he was interested, or else, lest he should be missing at the 

20 critical moment, was drinking with the other witnesses 
under the pastoral surveillance of the attorneys. During 
the night, or that part of it which at sea would form the 
middle watch, he was driving. This explanation certainly 
accounted for his drowsiness, but in a way which made it 

25 much more alarming ; since now, after several days' resist- 
ance to this infirmity, at length he was steadily giving way. 
Throughout the second stage he grew more and more 
drowsy. In the second mile of the third stage he sur- 
rendered himself finally and without a struggle to his 

right branch; Manchester at the top of the left; Proud Preston at 
the centre, where the two branches unite. It is thirty-three miles 
along either of the two branches ; it is twenty-two miles along the 
stem, — viz., from Preston in the middle to Lancaster at the root. 
There's a lesson in geography for the reader ! _- - 



THE ENGLISH MAIL-COACH 319 

perilous temptation. All his past resistance had but deepened 
the weight of this final oppression. Seven atmospheres of 
sleep rested upon him ; and, to consummate the case, our 
worthy guard, after singing " Love amongst the Roses " 
for perhaps thirty times, without invitation and without 5 
applause, had in revenge moodily resigned himself to 
slumber — not so deep, doubtless, as the coachman's, but 
deep enough for mischief. And thus at last, about ten 
miles from Preston, it came about that I found myself left 
in charge of his Majesty's London and Glasgow mail, then 10 
running at the least twelve miles an hour. 
[■, What made this negligence less criminal than else it must 
have been thought was the condition of the roads at night 
during the assizes. At that time, all the law business of 
populous Liverpool, and also of populous Manchester, with 15 
its vast cincture of populous rural districts, was called up 
by ancient usage to the tribunal of Lilliputian Lancaster. 
To break up this old traditional usage required, i, a 
conflict with powerful established interests, 2, a large sys- 
tem of new arrangements, and 3, a new parliamentary 20 
statute. But as yet this change was merely in contem- 
plation. As things were at present, twice in the year^ so 
vast a body of business rolled northwards from the south- 
ern quarter of the county that for a fortnight at least it 
occupied the severe exertions of two judges in its despatch. 25 
The consequence of this was that every horse available for 
such a service, along the whole line of road, was exhausted 
in carrying down the multitudes of people who were parties 
to the different suits. By sunset, therefore, it usually hap- 
pened that, through utter exhaustion amongst men and 3° 
horses, the road sank into profound silence. Except the 

1" Twice itt the year'' : — There were at that time only two assizes 
even in the most populous counties — viz., the Lent Assizes and the 
Summer Assizes. 



320 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

exhaustion in the vast adjacent county of York from a 
contested election, no such silence succeeding to no such 
fiery uproar was ever witnessed in England. 
V On this occasion the usual silence and solitude prevailed 

5 along the road. Not a hoof nor a wheel was to be heard. 
And, to strengthen this false luxurious confidence in the 
noiseless roads, it happened also that the night was one of 
peculiar solemnity and peace. For my own part, though 
slightly alive to the possibilities of peril, I had so far 

lo yielded to the influence of the mighty calm as to sink 
into a profound reverie. The month was August ; in the 
middle of which lay my own birthday — a festival to every 
thoughtful man suggesting solemn and often sigh-born^ 
thoughts. The county was my own native county — 

15 upon which, in its southern section, more than upon any 
equal area known to man past or present, had descended 
the original curse of labour in its heaviest form, not master- 
ing the bodies only of men, as of slaves, or criminals in 
mines, but working through the fiery will. Upon no equal 

20 space of earth was, or ever had been, the same energy of 
human power put forth daily. At this particular season 
also of the assizes, that dreadful hurricane of flight and 
pursuit, as it might have seemed to a stranger, which swept 
to and from Lancaster all day long, hunting the county 

25 up and down, and regularly subsiding back into silence 
about sunset, could not fail (when united with this perma- 
nent distinction of Lancashire as the very metropolis and 
citadel of labour) to point the thoughts pathetically upon 
that counter-vision of rest, of saintly repose from strife and 

30 sorrow, towards which, as to their secret haven, the pro- 
founder aspirations of man's heart are in solitude continually 

1 '* Sigh-born " / — I owe the suggestion of this word to an obscure 
remembrance of a beautiful phrase in " Giraldus Cambrensis " — viz., 
suspirioscB cogitationes. 



THE E.VGLISH MAIL-COACH 321 

travelling. Obliquely upon our left we were nearing the 
sea ; which also must, under the present circumstances, be 
repeating the general state of halcyon repose. The sea, 
the atmosphere, the light, bore each an orchestral part in 
this universal lull. Moonlight and the first timid trem- 5 
blings of the dawn were by this time blending ; and the 
blendings were brought into a still more exquisite state of 
unity by a slight silvery mist, motionless and dreamy, that 
covered the woods and fields, but with a veil of equable 
transparency. Except the feet of our own horses, — which, 10 
running on a sandy margin of the road, made but little 
disturbance, — there was no sound abroad. In the clouds 
and on the earth prevailed the same majestic peace ; and, 
in spite of all that the villain of a schoolmaster has done for 
the ruin of our sublimer thoughts, which are the thoughts 15 
of our infancy, we still believe in no such nonsense as a 
limited atmosphere. Whatever we may swear with our false 
feigning lips, in our faithful hearts we still believe, and must 
for ever believe, in fields of air traversing the total gulf 
between earth and the central heavens. Still, in the con- 20 
fidence of children that tread without fear every chamber 
in their father's house, and to whom no door is closed, we, 
in that Sabbatic vision which sometimes is revealed for 
an hour upon nights like this, ascend with easy steps from 
the sorrow-stricken fields of earth upwards to the sandals 25 
of God. 

Suddenly, from thoughts like these I was awakened to a 
sullen sound, as of some motion on the distant road. It 
stole upon the air for a moment ; I listened in awe ; but 
then it died away. Once roused, however, I could not but 3° 
observe with alarm the quickened motion of our horses. 
Ten years' experience had made my eye learned in the 
valuing of motion ; and I saw that we were now running 
thirteen miles an hour. I pretend to no presence of mind. 



32 2 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCEY 

On the contrary, my fear is that I am miserably and shame- 
fully deficient in that quality as regards action. The palsy 
of doubt and distraction hangs like some guilty weight of 
dark unfathomed remembrances upon my energies when 
S the signal is flying for action. But, on the other hand, this 
accursed gift I have, as regards tJwught^ that in the first 
step towards the possibility of a misfortune I see its total 
evolution ; in the radix of the series I see too certainly 
and too instantly its entire expansion ; in the first syllable 

lo of the dreadful sentence I read already the last. It was 
not that I feared for ourselves. Us our bulk and impetus 
charmed against peril in any collision. And I had ridden 
through too many hundreds of perils that were frightful to 
approach, that were matter of laughter to look back upon, 

15 the first face of which was horror, the parting face a jest — 
for any anxiety to rest upon our interests. The mail was 
not built, I felt assured, nor bespoke, that could betray me 
who trusted to its protection. But any carriage that we 
could meet would be frail and light in comparison of our- 

20 selves. And I remarked this ominous accident of our 
situation, — we were on the wrong side of the road. But 
then, it may be said, the other party, if other there was, 
might also be on the wrong side ; and two wrongs might 
make a right. That was not likely. The same motive which 

25 had drawn us to the right-hand side of the road — viz., the 
luxury of the soft beaten sand as contrasted with the paved 
centre — would prove attractive to others. The two adverse 
carriages would therefore, to a certainty, be travelling on 
the same side ; and from this side, as not being ours in 

30 law, the crossing over to the other would, of course, be 
looked for from tis} Our lamps, still lighted, would give 

1 It is true that, according to the law of the case as established by 
legal precedents, all carriages were required to give way before royal 
equipages, and therefore before the mail as one of them. But this 



THE ENGLISH MAIL-COACH 323 

the impression of vigilance on our part. And every crea- 
ture that met us would rely upon us for quartering.^ All 
this, and if the separate links of the anticipation had been 
a thousand times more, I saw, not discursively, or by effort, 
or by succession, but by one flash of horrid simultaneous 5 
intuition. 

\/ Under this steady though rapid anticipation of the evil 
which might be gathering ahead, ah ! what a sullen mystery 
of fear, what a sigh of woe, was that which stole upon the 
air, as again the far-off sound of a wheel was heard ! A 10 
whisper it was — a whisper from, perhaps, four miles off — 
secretly announcing a ruin that, being foreseen, was not the 
less inevitable ; that, being known, was not therefore healed. 
What could be done — who was it that could do it — to check 
the storm-flight of these maniacal horses.'' Could I not 15 
seize the reins from the grasp of the slumbering coachman ? 
You, reader, think that it would have been in your power to 
do so. And I quarrel not with your estimate of yourself. 
But, from the way in which the coachman's hand was viced 
between his upper and lower thigh, this was impossible. 20 
Easy was it ? See, then, that bronze equestrian statue. The 
cruel rider has kept the bit in his horse's mouth for two cen- 
turies. Unbridle him for a minute, if you please, and wash 
his mouth with water. Easy was it ? Unhorse me, then, 
that imperial rider; knock me those marble feet from those 25 
marble stirrups of Charlemagne. 

The sounds ahead strengthened, and were now too clearly 
the sounds of wheels. Who and what could it be ? Was it 
industry in a taxed cart 1 Was it youthful gaiety in a gig ? 

only increased the danger, as being a regulation very imperfectly made 
known, very unequally enforced, and therefore often embarrassing the 
movements on both sides. 

1 " Quartering^'' : — This is the technical word, and, I presume, derived 
from the French cartayer, to evade a rut or any obstacle. 



324 SELECTIONS FROM BE QUINCE Y 

Was it sorrow that loitered, or joy that raced ? For as yet 
the snatches of sound were too intermitting, from distance, 
to decipher the character of the motion. Whoever were the 
travellers, something must be done to warn them. Upon 
5 the other party rests the active responsibility, but upon iis 
— and, woe is me ! that us was reduced to my frail opium- 
shattered self — rests the responsibility of warning. Yet, 
how should this be accomplished ? Might I not sound the 
guard's horn ? Already, on the first thought, I was making 

lo my way over the roof of the guard's seat. But this, from 
the accident which I have mentioned, of the foreign mails 
being piled upon the roof, was a difficult and even danger- 
ous attempt to one cramped by nearly three hundred miles 
of outside travelling. And, fortunately, before I had lost 

15 much time in the attempt, our frantic horses swept round 
an angle of the road which opened upon us that final stage 
where the collision must be accomplished and the catas- 
trophe sealed. All was apparently finished. The court was 
sitting ; the case was heard ; the judge had finished ; and 

20 only the verdict was yet in arrear. 

Before us lay an avenue straight as an arrow, six hundred 
yards, perhaps, in length ; and the umbrageous trees, which 
rose in a regular line from either side, meeting high over- 
head, gave to it the character of a cathedral aisle. These 

25 trees lent a deeper solemnity to the early light ; but there 
was still light enough to perceive, at the further end of this 
Gothic aisle, a frail reedy gig, in which were seated a young 
man, and by his side a young lady. Ah, young sir ! what 
are you about ? If it is requisite that you should whisper 

30 your communications to this young lady — though really I 
see nobody, at an hour and on a road so solitary, likely to 
overhear you — is it therefore requisite that you should 
carry your lips forward to hers ? The little carriage is 
creeping on at one mile an hour ; and the parties within it, 



THE ENGLISH MAIL-COACH 



325 



being thus tenderly engaged, are naturally bending down 
their heads. Between them and eternity, to all human 
calculation, there is but a minute and a half. Oh heavens ! 
what is it that I shall do t Speaking or acting, what help 
can I offer ? Strange it is, and to a mere auditor of the 5 
tale might seem laughable, that I should need a suggestion 
from the "Iliad" to prompt the sole resource that remained. 
Yet so it was. Suddenly I remembered the shout of Achilles, 
and its effect. But could I pretend to shout like the son of 
Peleus, aided by Pallas 1 No : but then I needed not the 10 
shout that should alarm all Asia militant ; such a shout 
would suffice as might carry terror into the hearts of two 
thoughtless young people and one gig-horse. I shouted — 
and the young man heard me not. A second time I shouted 
— and now he heard me, for now he raised his head. 15 

Here, then, all had been done that, by me, could be done ; 
more on my part was not possible. Mine had been the first 
step ; the second was for the young man ; the third was for 
God. If, said I, this stranger is a brave man, and if indeed 
he loves the young girl at his side — or, loving her not, if 20 
he feels the obligation, pressing upon every man worthy to 
be called a man, of doing his utmost for a woman confided 
to his protection — he will at least make some effort to save 
her. If that fails, he will not perish the more, or by a death 
more cruel, for having made it ; and he will die as a brave 25 
man should, with his face to the danger, and with his arm 
about the woman that he sought in vain to save. But, if 
he makes no effort, — shrinking without a struggle from his 
duty, — he himself will not the less certainly perish for this 
baseness of poltroonery. He will die no less : and why not t 30 
Wherefore should we grieve that there is one craven less in 
the world t No ; let him perish, without a pitying thought 
of ours wasted upon him ; and, in that case, all our grief 
will be reserved for the fate of the helpless girl who now, 



326 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE V 

upon the least shadow of failure in him, must by the fiercest 
of translations — must without time for a prayer — must 
within seventy seconds — stand before the judgment-seat 
of God. 
5 But craven he was not : sudden had been the call upon 
him, and sudden was his answer to the call. He saw, he 
heard, he comprehended, the ruin that was coming down : 
already its gloomy shadow darkened above him ; and already 
he was measuring his strength to deal with it. Ah ! what a 

10 vulgar thing does courage seem when we see nations buying 
it and selling it for a shilling a-day : ah ! what a sublime 
thing does courage seem when some fearful summons on 
the great deeps of life carries a man, as if running before a 
hurricane, up to the giddy crest of some tumultuous crisis 

15 from which lie two courses, and a voice says to him audibly, 
"One way lies hope; take the other, and mourn for ever!" 
How grand a triumph if, even then, amidst the raving of all 
around him, and the frenzy of the danger, the man is able to 
confront his situation • — is able to retire for a moment into 

20 solitude with God, and to seek his counsel from Him ! \ 

For seven seconds, it might be, of his seventy, the stranger 

settled his countenance steadfastly upon us, as if to search 

and value every element in the conflict before him. For 

five seconds more of his seventy he sat immovably, like one 

25 that mused on some great purpose. For five more, perhaps, 
he sat with eyes upraised, like one that prayed in sorrow, 
under some extremity of doubt, for light that should guide 
him to the better choice. Then suddenly he rose ; stood 
upright ; and, by a powerful strain upon the reins, raising 

30 his horse's fore-feet from the ground, he slewed him round 
on the pivot of his hind-legs, so as to plant the little equi- 
page in a position nearly at right angles to ours. Thus far 
his condition was not improved ; except as a first step had 
been taken towards the possibility of a second. If no more 



THE ENGLISH MAIL-COACH 327 

were done, nothing was done ; for the little carriage still 
occupied the very centre of our path, though in an altered 
direction. Yet even now it may not be too late : fifteen 
of the seventy seconds may still be unexhausted ; and one 
almighty bound may avail to clear the ground. Hurry, 5 
then, hurry ! for the flying moments — they hurry. Oh, 
hurry, hurry, my brave young man ! for the cruel hoofs of 
our horses — they also hurry ! Fast are the flying moments, 
faster are the hoofs of our horses. But fear not for him^ 
if human energy can suffice; faithful was he that drove to 10 
his terrific duty ; faithful was the horse to his command. 
One blow, one impulse given with voice and hand, by the 
stranger, one rush from the horse, one bound as if in the 
act of rising to a fence, landed the docile creature's fore- 
feet upon the crown or arching centre of the road. The 15 
larger half of the little equipage had then cleared our over- 
towering shadow : that was evident even to my own agitated 
sight. But it mattered little that one wreck should float off 
in safety if upon the wreck that perished were embarked 
the human freightage. The rear part of the carriage — 20 
was that certainly beyond the line of absolute ruin .'' What 
power could answer the question ? Glance of eye, thought 
of man, wing of angel, which of these had speed enough to 
sweep between the question and the answer, and divide the 
one from the other ? Light does not tread upon the steps 25 
of light more indivisibly than did our all-conquering arrival 
upon the escaping efforts of the gig. That must the young 
man have felt too plainly. His back was now turned to 
us ; not by sight could he any longer communicate with the 
peril ; but, by the dreadful rattle of our harness, too truly 30 
had his ear been instructed that all was finished as regarded 
any effort of his. Already in resignation he had rested 
from his struggle ; and perhaps in his heart he was whisper- 
ing, "Father, which art in heaven, do Thou finish above 



328 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

what I on earth have attempted." Faster than ever mill- 
race we ran past them in our inexorable flight. Oh, raving 
of hurricanes that must have sounded in their young ears 
at the moment of our transit ! Even in that moment the 

5 thunder of collision spoke aloud. Either with the swingle- 
bar, or with the haunch of our near leader, we had struck 
the off-wheel of the little gig ; which stood rather obliquely, 
and not quite so far advanced as to be accurately parallel 
with the near-wheel. The blow, from the fury of our pas- 

10 sage, resounded terrifically. I rose in horror, to gaze upon 
the ruins we might have caused. From my elevated station 
I looked down, and looked back upon the scene ; which in 
a moment told its own tale, and wrote all its records on 
my heart for ever. 

15 Here was the map of the passion that now had finished. 
The horse was planted immovably, with his fore-feet upon 
the paved crest of the central road. He of the whole party 
might be supposed untouched by the passion of death. The 
little cany carriage — partly, perhaps, from the violent tor- 

20 sion of the wheels in its recent movement, partly from the 
thundering blow we had given to it — as if it sympathised 
with human horror, was all alive with tremblings and shiver- 
ings. The young man trembled not, nor shivered. He sat 
like a rock. But his was the steadiness of agitation frozen 

25 into rest by horror. As yet he dared not to look round ; for 
he knew that, if anything remained to do, by him it could 
no longer be done. And as yet he knew not for certain if 

their safety were accomplished. Biit the lady 

But the lady ! Oh, heavens ! will that spectacle ever 

30 depart from my dreams, as she rose and sank upon her seat, 
sank and rose, threw up her arms wildly to heaven, clutched 
at some visionary object in the air, fainting, praying, raving, 
despairing ? Figure to yourself, reader, the elements of the 
case ; suffer me to recall before your mind the circumstances 



THE ENGLISH MAIL-COACH 329 

of that unparalleled situation. From the silence and deep 
peace of this saintly summer night — from the pathetic 
blending of this sweet moonlight, dawnlight, dreamlight — 
from the manly tenderness of this flattering, whispering, 
murmuring love — suddenly as from the woods and fields 5 
— suddenly as from the chambers of the air opening in 
revelation — suddenly as from the ground yawning at her 
feet, leaped upon her, with the flashing of cataracts. Death 
the crowned phantom, with all the equipage of his terrors, 
and the tiger roar of his voice. 10 

The moments were numbered ; the strife was finished ; 
the vision was closed. In the twinkling of an ^e, our 
flying horses had carried us to the termination of the 
umbrageous aisle ; at the right angles we wheeled into our 
former direction ; the turn of the road carried the scene 1 5 
out of my eyes in an instant, and swept it into my dreams 
for ever. 

Section III — Dream-Fugue: 

FOUNDED ON THE PRECEDING THEME OF SUDDEN DEATH 



I 



" Whence the sound 
Of instruments, that made melodious chime, 
Was heard, of harp and organ ; and who moved 20 

Their stops and chords was seen ; his volant touch 
Instinct through all proportions, low and high, 
Fled and pursued transverse the resonant fugue." 

Par. Lost, Bk. XI. 

Tumultuosissimamente 

Passion of sudden death ! that once in youth I read and 
interpreted by the shadows of thy averted signs ^ ! — rapture 25 

1 " Averted signs " ; — I read the course and changes of the lady's 
agony in the succession of her involuntary gestures ; but it must be 
remembered that I read all this from the rear, never once catching the 
lady's full face, and even her profile imperfectly. 



330 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

of panic taking the shape (which amongst tombs in churches 
I have seen) of woman bursting her sepulchral bonds — of 
woman's Ionic form bending forward from the ruins of her 
grave with arching foot, with eyes upraised, with clasped 

5 adoring hands — waiting, watching, trembling, praying for 
the trumpet's call to rise from dust for ever! Ah, vision 
too fearful of shuddering humanity on the brink of almighty 
abysses ! — vision that didst start back, that didst reel away, 
like a shrivelling scroll from before the wrath of fire racing 

[o on the wings of the wind ! Epilepsy so brief of horror, 
wherefore is it that thou canst not die ? Passing so sud- 
denly into darkness, wherefore is it that still thou shed- 
dest thy sad funeral blights upon the gorgeous mosaics of 
dreams ? Fragment of music too passionate, heard once, 

15 and heard no more, what aileth thee, that thy deep rolling 
chords come up at intervals through all the worlds of sleep, 
and after forty years have lost no element of horror ? 



Lo, it is summer — almighty summer ! The everlasting 
gates of life and summer are thrown open wide ; and on the 

20 ocean, tranquil and verdant as a savannah, the unknown 
lady from the dreadful vision and I myself are floating — 
she upon a fairy pinnace, and I upon an English three- 
decker. Both of us are wooing gales of festal happiness 
within the domain of our common country, within that 

25 ancient watery park, within the pathless chase of ocean, i 
where England takes her pleasure as a huntress through j 
winter and summer, from the rising to the setting sun. j 
Ah, what a wilderness of floral beauty was hidden, or was | 
suddenly revealed, upon the tropic islands through which 

30 the pinnace moved ! And upon her deck what a bevy of 
human flowers : young women how lovely, young men how. 



THE ENGLISH MAIL-COACH 331 

noble, that were dancing together, and slowly drifting 
towards us amidst music and incense, amidst blossoms 
from forests and gorgeous coryrtibi from vintages, amidst 
natural carolling, and the echoes of sweet girlish laughter. 
Slowly the pinnace nears us, gaily she hails us, and silently 5 
she disappears beneath the shadow of our mighty bows. 
But then, as at some signal from heaven, the music, and 
the carols, and the sweet echoing of girlish laughter — all 
are hushed. What evil has smitten the pinnace, meeting 
or overtaking her ? Did ruin to our friends couch within 10 
our own dreadful shadow t Was our shadow the shadow 
of death ? I looked over the bow for an answer, and, 
behold ! the pinnace was dismantled ; the revel and the 
revellers were found no more ; the glory of the vintage was 
dust; and the forests with their beauty were left without a 15 
witness upon the seas. "But where," and I turned to our 
crew — " where are the lovely women that danced beneath 
the awning of flowers and clustering corymbi ? Whither 
have fled the noble young men that danced with them ? " 
Answer there was none. But suddenly the man at the 20 
mast-head, whose countenance darkened with alarm, cried 
out, " Sail on the weather beam ! Down she comes upon 
us : in seventy seconds she also will founder." 



II 

I looked to the weather side, and the summer had 
departed. The sea was rocking, and shaken with gather- 25 
ing wrath. Upon its surface sat mighty mists, which 
grouped themselves into arches and long cathedral aisles. 
Down one of these, with the fiery pace of a quarrel from a 
cross-bow, ran a frigate right athwart our course. "Are 
they mad?" some voice exclaimed from our deck. "Do 30 
they woo their ruin ? " But in a moment, as she was close 



332 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE V 

upon us, some impulse of a heady current or local vortex 
gave a wheeling bias to her course, and off she forged with- 
out a shock. As she ran past us, high aloft amongst the 
shrouds stood the lady of the pinnace. The deeps opened 

5 ahead in malice to receive her, towering surges of foam 
ra^n after her, the billows were fierce to catch her. But 
far away she was borne into desert spaces of the sea: 
whilst still by sight I followed her, as she ran before the 
howling gale, chased by angry sea-birds and by madden- 

lo ing billows ; still I saw her, as at the moment when she 
ran past us, standing amongst the shrouds, with her white 
draperies streaming before the wind. There she stood, 
with hair dishevelled, one hand clutched amongst the tack- 
ling — rising, sinking, fluttering, trembling, praying ; there 

15 for leagues I saw her as she stood, raising at intervals one 
hand to heaven, amidst the fiery crests of the pursuing 
waves and the raving of the storm ; until at last, upon a 
sound from afar of malicious laughter and mockery, all 
was hidden for ever in driving showers ; and afterwards, 

20 but when I knew not, nor how, 



III 

Sweet funeral bells from some incalculable distance, wail- 
ing over the dead that die before the dawn, awakened me 
as I slept in a boat moored to some familiar shore. The 
morning twilight even then was breaking ; and, by the 

25 dusky revelations which it spread, I saw a girl, adorned 
with a garland of white roses about her head for some 
great festival, running along the solitary strand in extrem- 
ity of haste. Her running was the running of panic ; and 
often she looked back as to some dreadful enemy in the 

30 rear. But, when I leaped ashore, and followed on her steps 
to warn her of a peril in front, alas ! from me she fled as 



THE ENGLISH MAIL-COACH 333 

from another peril, and vainly I shouted to her of quick- 
sands that lay ahead. Faster and faster she ran ; round a 
promontory of rocks she wheeled out of sight ; in an instant 
I also wheeled round it, but only to see the treacherous 
sands gathering above her head. Already her person was 5 
buried ; only the fair young head and the diadem of white 
roses around it were still visible to the pitying heavens ; 
and, last of all, was visible one white marble arm. I saw 
by the early twilight this fair young head, as it was sinking 
down to darkness — saw this marble arm, as it rose above 10 
her head and her treacherous grave, tossing, faltering, ris- 
ing, clutching, as at some false deceiving hand stretched 
out from the clouds — saw this marble arm uttering her 
dying hope, and then uttering her dying despair. The 
head, the diadem, the arm — these all had sunk; at last 15 
over these also the cruel quicksand had closed ; and no 
memorial of the fair young girl remained on earth, except 
my own solitary tears, and the funeral bells from the desert 
seas, that, rising again more softly, sang a requiem over 
the grave of the buried child, and over her blighted dawn. 20 

I sat, and wept in secret the tears that men have ever 
given to the memory of those that died before the dawn, 
and by the treachery of earth, our mother. But suddenly 
the tears and funeral bells were hushed by a shout as of 
many nations, and by a roar as from some great king's 25 
artillery, advancing rapidly along the valleys, and heard 
afar by echoes from the mountains. " Hush ! " I said, as I 
bent my ear earthwards to listen — "hush! — this either is 
the very anarchy of strife, or else " — and then I listened 
more profoundly, and whispered as I raised my head — 30 
"or else, oh heavens! it is victory that is final, victory that 
swallows up all strife." 



334 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

IV 

Immediately, in trance, I was carried over land and sea 
to some distant kingdom, and placed upon a triumphal car, 
amongst companions crowned with laurel. The darkness 
of gathering midnight, brooding over all the land, hid from 
5 us the mighty crowds that were weaving restlessly about 
ourselves as a centre : we heard them, but saw them not. 
Tidings had arrived, within an hour, of a grandeur that 
measured itself against centuries ; too full of pathos they 
were, too full of joy, to utter themselves by other language 

10 than by tears, by restless anthems, and Te Deums reverber- 
ated from the choirs and orchestras of earth. These tid- 
ings we that sat upon the laurelled car had it for our 
privilege to publish amongst all nations. And already, 
by signs audible through the darkness, by snortings and 

IS tramplings, our angry horses, that knew no fear or fleshly 
weariness, upbraided us with delay. Wherefore was it that 
we delayed ? We waited for a secret word, that should 
bear witness to the hope of nations as now accomplished 
for ever. At midnight the secret word arrived ; which 

2o word was — Waterloo and Recovered Christendom ! The 
dreadful word shone by its own light ; before us it went ; 
high above our leaders' heads it rode, and spread a golden 
light over the paths which we traversed. Every city, at 
the presence of the secret word, threw open its gates. The 

25 rivers were conscious as we crossed. All the forests, as we 
ran along their margins, shivered in homage to the secret 
word. And the darkness comprehended it. 

Two hours after midnight we approached a mighty 
Minster. Its gates, which rose to the clouds, were closed. 

30 But, when the dreadful word that rode before us reached 
them with its golden light, silently they moved back upon 
their hinges ; and at a flying gallop our equipage entered 



THE ENGLISH MAIL-COACH 335 

the grand aisle of the cathedral. Headlong was our pace ; 
and at every altar, in the little chapels and oratories to the 
right hand and left of our course, the lamps, dying or sick- 
ening, kindled anew in sympathy with the secret word that 
was flying past. Forty leagues we might have run in the 5 
cathedral, and as yet no strength of morning light had 
reached us, when before us we saw the aerial galleries 
of organ and choir. Every pinnacle of fretwork, every 
station of advantage amongst the traceries, was crested 
by white-robed choristers that sang deliverance; that wept 10 
no more tears, as once their fathers had wept ; but at 
intervals that sang together to the generations, saying, 

" Chant the deliverer's praise in every tongue," 

and receiving answers from afar, 

" Such as once in heaven and earth were sung," 15 

And of their chanting was no end ; of our headlong pace 
was neither pause nor slackening. 

Thus as we ran like torrents — thus as we swept with 
bridal rapture over the Campo Santo ^ of the cathedral 
graves — suddenly we became aware of a vast necropolis 20 
rising upon the far-off horizon — a city of sepulchres, built 
within the saintly cathedral for the warrior dead that 

1 " Campo Santo " ; — It is probable that most of my readers will 
be acquainted with the history of the Campo Santo (or cemetery) at 
Pisa, composed of earth brought from Jerusalem from a bed of sanc- 
tity as the highest prize which the noble piety of crusaders could 
ask or imagine. To readers who are unacquainted with England, or 
who (being English) are yet unacquainted with the cathedral cities of 
England, it may be right to mention that the graves within-side the 
cathedrals often form a flat pavement over which carriages and horses 
might run ; and perhaps a boyish remembrance of one particular cathe- 
dral, across which I had seen passengers walk and burdens carried, as 
about two centuries back they were through the middle of St. Paul's 
in London, may have assisted my dream. 



336 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

rested from their feuds on earth. Of purple granite was 
the necropolis ; yet, in the first minute, it lay like a purple 
stain upon the horizon, so mighty was the distance. In 
the second minute it trembled through many changes, 

5 growing into terraces and towers of wondrous altitude, 
so mighty was the pace. In the third minute already, with 
our dreadful gallop, we were entering its suburbs. Vast 
sarcophagi rose on every side, having towers and turrets 
that, upon the limits of the central aisle, strode forward 

10 with haughty intrusion, that ran back with mighty shad- 
ows into answering recesses. Every sarcophagus showed 
many bas-reliefs — bas-reliefs of battles and of battle-fields; 
battles from forgotten ages, battles from yesterday ; battle- 
fields that, long since, nature had healed and reconciled to 

15 herself with the sweet oblivion of flowers; battle-fields that 
were yet angry and crimson with carnage. Where the 
terraces ran, there did we run ; where the towers curved, 
there did we curve. With the flight of swallows our horses 
swept round every angle. Like rivers in flood wheeling 

20 round headlands, like hurricanes that ride into the secrets 
of forests, faster than ever light unwove the mazes of dark- 
ness, our flying equipage carried earthly passions, kindled 
warrior instincts, amongst the dust that lay around us — 
dust oftentimes of our noble fathers that had slept in God 

25 from Crecy to Trafalgar. And now had we reached the 
last sarcophagus, now were we abreast of the last bas-relief, 
already had we recovered the arrow-like flight of the illim- 
itable central aisle, when coming up this aisle to meet us 
we beheld afar off a female child, that rode in a carriage 

30 as frail as flowers. The mists which went before her hid 
the fawns that drew her, but could not hide the shells and 
tropic flowers with which she played — but could not hide 
the lovely smiles by which she uttered her trust in the 
mighty cathedral, and in the cherubim that looked down | 



THE ENGLISH MAIL-COACH 337 

upon her from the mighty shafts of its pillars. Face to 
face she was meeting us; face to face she rode, as if danger 
there were none. "Oh, baby!" I exclaimed, "shalt thou 
be the ransom for Waterloo ? Must we, that carry tidings 
. of great joy to every people, be messengers of ruin to 5 
thee ! " In horror I rose at the thought ; but then also, in 
horror at the thought, rose one that was sculptured on a 
bas-relief — a Dying Trumpeter. Solemnly from the field 
of battle he rose to his feet ; and, unslinging his stony 
trumpet, carried it, in his dying anguish, to his stony lips 10 
— sounding once, and yet once again ; proclamation that, 
in thy ears, oh baby ! spoke from the battlements of death. 
Immediately deep shadows fell between us, and aboriginal 
silence. The choir had ceased to sing. The hoofs of 
our horses, the dreadful rattle of our harness, the groan- 15 
ing of our wheels, alarmed the graves- no more. By horror 
the bas-relief had been unlocked unto life. By horror we, 
that were so full of life, we men and our horses, with their 
fiery fore-legs rising in mid air to their everlasting gallop, 
were frozen to a bas-relief. Then a third time the trumpet 20 
sounded ; the seals were taken off all pulses ; life, and the 
frenzy of life, tore into their channels again ; again the 
choir burst forth in sunny grandeur, as from the muffling 
of storms and darkness ; again the thunderings of our 
horses carried temptation into the graves. One cry burst 25 
from our lips, as the clouds, drawing off from the aisle, 
showed it empty before us. — "Whither has the infant 
fled ? — is the young child caught up to God ? " Lo ! afar 
off, in a vast recess, rose three mighty windows to the 
clouds ; and on a level with their summits, at height 30 
insuperable to man, rose an altar of purest alabaster. 
On its eastern face was trembling a crimson glory. A 
glory was it from the reddening dawn that now streamed 
through the windows ? Was it from the crimson robes of 



338 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCEY 

the martyrs painted oji the windows ? Was it from the 
bloody bas-reliefs of earth ? There, suddenly, within that 
crimson radiance, rose the apparition of a woman's head, 
and then of a woman's figure. The child it was — grown 
5 up to woman's height. Clinging to the horns of the altar,, 
voiceless she stood — sinking, rising, raving, despairing ; 
and behind the volume of incense that, night and day, 
streamed upwards from the altar, dimly was seen the fiery 
font, and the shadow of that dreadful being who should 

10 have baptized her with the baptism of death. But by her 
side was kneeling her better angel, that hid his face with 
wings; that wept and pleaded for her; that prayed when 
she could not ; that fought with Heaven by tears for her 
deliverance; which also, as he raised his immortal counte- 

15 nance from his wings, I saw, by the glory in his eye, that 
from Heaven he had won at last. 



Then was completed the passion of the mighty fugue. 
The golden tubes of the organ, which as yet had but mut- 
tered at intervals — gleaming amongst clouds and surges 

20 of incense — threw up, as from fountains unfathomable, 
columns of heart-shattering music. Choir and anti-choir 
were filling fast with unknown voices. Thou also. Dying 
Trumpeter, with thy love that was victorious, and thy 
anguish that was finishing, didst enter the tumult; trum- 

25 pet and echo — farewell love, and farewell anguish — rang 
through the dreadful sanctus. Oh, darkness of the grave ! 
that from the crimson altar and from the fiery font wert 
visited and searched by the effulgence in the angel's eye — 
were these indeed thy children .? Pomps of life, that, from 

30 the burials of centuries, rose again to the voice of perfect 
joy, did ye indeed mingle with the festivals of Death ? Lo ! 



THE ENGLISH MAIL-COACH 339 

as I looked back for seventy leagues through the mighty 
cathedral, I saw the quick and the dead that sang together 
to God, together that sang to the generations of man. All 
the hosts of jubilation, like armies that ride in pursuit, 
moved with one step. Us, that, with laurelled heads, were 5 
passing from the cathedral, they overtook, and, as with a 
garment, they wrapped us round with thunders greater than 
our own. As brothers we moved together ; to the dawn 
that advanced, to the stars that fled ; rendering thanks to 
God in the highest — that, having hid His face through 10 
one generation behind thick clouds of War, once again 
was ascending, from the Campo Santo of Waterloo was 
ascending, in the visions of Peace ; rendering thanks for 
thee, young girl ! whom having overshadowed with His 
ineffable passion of death, suddenly did God relent, suffered 15 
thy angel to turn aside His arm, and even in thee, sister 
unknown ! shown to me for a moment only to be hidden 
for ever, found an occasion to glorify His goodness. A 
thousand times, amongst the phantoms of sleep, have I 
seen thee entering the gates of the golden dawn, with the 20 
secret word riding before thee, with the armies of the 
grave behind thee, — seen thee sinking, rising, raving, 
despairing ; a thousand times in the worlds of sleep have I 
seen thee followed by God's angel through storms, through 
desert seas, through the darkness of quicksands, through 25 
dreams and the dreadful revelations that are in dreams ; 
only that at the last, with one sling of His victorious arm. 
He might snatch thee back from ruin, and might emblazon 
in thy deliverance the endless resurrections of His love ! 



ON MURDER CONSIDERED AS ONE OF THE 
FINE ARTS 

A GOOD many years ago, the reader may remember that 
I came forward in the character of a dilettaiiie in murder. 
Perhaps dilettante is too strong a word. Cofinoisseiir is better 
suited to the scruples and infirmity of public taste. I sup- 
5 pose there is no harm in that^ at least. A man is not bound 
to put his eyes, ears, and understanding into his breeches 
pocket when he meets with a murder. If he is not in a 
downright comatose state, I suppose that he must see that 
one murder is better or worse than another, in point of 

lo good taste. Murders have their little differences and 
shades of merit, as well as statues, pictures, oratorios, 
cameos, intaglios, or what not. You may be angry with 
the man for talking too much, or too publicly (as to the 
too much, that I deny — a man can never cultivate his 

15 taste too highly); but you must allow him to think, at any 
rate. Well, would you believe it ? all my neighbours came 
to hear of that little aesthetic essay which I had published ; 
and, unfortunately, hearing at the very same time of a club 
that I was connected with, and a dinner at which I pre- 

20 sided — both tending to the same little object as the essay, 
viz., the diffusion of a just taste among Her Majesty's sub- 
jects^ — they got up the most barbarous calumnies against 
me. In particular, they said that I, or that the club (which 

^ Her Majesty: — In the lecture, having occasion to refer to the 
reigning sovereign, I said ''His Majesty "; for at that time William IV 
was on the throne ; but between the lecture and this supplement had 
occurred the accession of our present Queen. 

■ 340 



MURDER AS ONE OE THE EINE ARTS 341 

comes to the same thing), had offered bounties on well- 
conducted homicides — with a scale of drawbacks, in case, 
of any one defect or flaw, according to a table issued to 
private friends. Now, let me tell the whole truth about \he 
dinner and the club, and it will be seen how malicious the 5 
world is. But, first, confidentially, allow me to say what 
my real principles are upon the matter in question. 

As to murder, I never committed one in my life. It's a 
well-known thing amongst all my friends. I can get a paper 
to certify as much, signed by lots of people. Indeed, if you 10 
come to that, I doubt whether many people could produce 
as strong a certificate. Mine would be as big as a break- 
fast tablecloth. There is indeed one member of the club 
who pretends to say he caught me once making too free with 
his throat on a club night, after everybody else had retired. 15 
But, observe, he shuffles in his story according to his state 
of civilation. When not far gone, he contents himself with 
saying that he caught me ogling his throat, and that I was 
melancholy for some weeks after, and that my voice sounded 
in a way expressing, to the nice ear of a connoisseur, the 20 
sense of opportimities lost ; but the club all know that he is a 
disappointed man himself, and that he speaks querulously 
at times about the fatal neglect of a man's coming abroad 
without his tools. Besides, all this is an affair between two 
amateurs, and everybody makes allowances for little asperi- 25 
ties and fibs in such a case. <'But," say you, "if no mur- 
derer, you may have encouraged, or even have bespoken, a 
murder." No, upon my honour — no. And that was the 
very point I wished to argue for your satisfaction. The 
truth is, I am a very particular man in everything relating 30 
to murder ; and perhaps I carry my delicacy too far. The 
Stagirite most justly, and possibly with a view to my case, 
placed virtue in the to /aeo-oi/, or middle point between two 
extremes. A golden mean is certainly what every man 



342 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

should aim at. But it is easier talking than doing ; and, 
my infirmity being notoriously too much milkiness of heart, 
I find it difficult to maintain that steady equatorial line 
between the two poles of too much murder on the one hand 

5 and too little on the other. I am too soft ; and people get 
excused through me — nay, go through life without an 
attempt made upon them — that ought not to be excused. 
I believe, if I had the management of things, there would 
hardly be a murder from year's end to year's end. In fact, 

10 I'm for peace, and quietness, and fawningness, and what 
may be styled kiiocking-underness. A man came to me as 
a candidate for the place of my servant, just then vacant. 
He had the reputation of having dabbled a little in our art ; 
some said, not without merit. What startled me, however, 

IS was, that he supposed this art to be part of his regular duties 
in my service, and talked of having it considered in his 
wages. Now, that was a thing I would not allow ; so I 
said at once, "Richard (or James, as the case might be), 
you misunderstand my character. If a man will and must 

2o practise this difficult (and, allow me to add, dangerous) 
branch of art — if he has an overruling genius for it — 
why, in that case, all I say is that he might as well pursue 
his studies whilst living in my service as in another's. And 
also I may observe that it can do no harm either to him- 

25 self or to the subject on whom he operates that he should 
be guided by men of more taste than himself. Genius may 
do much, but long study of the art must always entitle a 
man to offer advice. So far I will go — general principles 
I will suggest. But, as to any particular case, once for all 

30 I will have nothing to do with it. Never tell me of any 
special work of art you are meditating — I set my face 
against it in toto. For, if once a man indulges himself in 
murder, very soon he comes to think little of robbing, and 
from robbing he comes next to drinking and Sabbath-breaking, 



MURDER AS ONE OF THE FINE ARTS 343 

and from that to incivility and procrastination. Once 
begin upon this downward path, you never know where you 
are to stop. Many a man dated his ruin from some murder 
or other that perhaps he thought little of at the time. 
Principiis obsta — that's my rule." Such was my speech, 5 
and I have always acted up to it ; so, if that is not being 
virtuous, I should be glad to know what is. 

But now about the dinner and the club. The club was 
not particularly of my creation ; it arose, — pretty much as 
other similar associations for the propagation of truth and 10 
the communication of new ideas, — rather from the neces- 
sities of things than upon any one man's suggestion. As 
to the dinner, if any man more than another could be held 
responsible for that, it was a member known amongst us 
by the name of Toad-in-the-hole. He was so called from 15 
his gloomy misanthropical disposit.ion, which led him into 
constant disparagements of all modern murders as vicious 
abortions, belonging to no authentic school of art. The 
finest performances of our own age he snarled at cynically ; 
and at length this querulous humour grew upon him so 20 
much, and he became so notorious as a laudator temporis 
acti, that few people cared to seek his society. This made 
him still more fierce and truculent. He went about mutter- 
ing and growling ; wherever you met him, he was soliloquis- 
ing, and saying "Despicable pretender — without grouping 25 

— without two ideas upon handling — without "; and 

there you lost him. At length existence seemed to be pain- 
ful to him ; he rarely spoke ; he seemed conversing with 
^ phantoms in the air ; his housekeeper informed us that his 
reading was nearly confined to "God's Revenge upon 30 
Murder " by Reynolds, and a more ancient book of the 
same title, noticed by Sir Walter Scott in his " Fortunes of 
Nigel." Sometimes, perhaps, he might read in the "New- 
gate Calendar " down to the year 1788 ; but he never looked 



344 SELECTIONS EROM DE' QUINCE Y 

into a book more recent. In fact, he had a theory with 
regard to the French Revolution, as having been the great 
cause of degeneration in murder. "Very soon, sir," he 
used to say, " men will have lost the art of killing poultry : 
5 the very rudiments of the art will have perished ! " In the 
year i8i i he retired from general society. Toad-in-the-hole 
was no more seen in any public resort. We missed him 
from his wonted haunts : " Nor up the lawn, nor at the 
wood was he." By the side of the main conduit his listless 

lo length at noontide he would stretch, and pore upon the 
filth that muddled by. " Even dogs," this pensive moralist 
would say, " are not what they were, sir — not what they 
should be. I remember in my grandfather's time that some 
dogs had an idea of murder. I have known a mastiff, sir, 

15 that lay in ambush for a rival, — yes, sir, and finally mur- 
dered him, with pleasing circumstances of good taste. I 
also was on intimate terms of acquaintance with a tom-cat 

that was an assassin. But now " ; and then, the subject 

growing too painful, he dashed his hand to his forehead, 

20 and went off abruptly in a homeward direction towards his 
favourite conduit ; where he was seen by an amateur in 
such a state that he thought it dangerous to address him. 
Soon after Toad shut himself entirely up ; it was understood 
that he had resigned himself to melancholy ; and at length 

25 the prevailing notion was that Toad-in-the-hole had hanged 
himself. 

The world was wrong there^ as it had been on some other 
questions. Toad-in-the-hole might be sleeping, but dead he 
was not ; and of that we soon had ocular proof. One morn- 

30 ing in 181 2, an amateur surprised us with the news that he 
had seen Toad-in-the-hole brushing with hasty steps the 
dews away, to meet the postman by the conduit side. Even 
that was something : how much more, to hear that he had 
shaved his beard — had laid aside his sad-coloured clothes, 



MURDER AS ONE OF THE FINE ARTS 345 

and was adorned like a bridegroom of ancient days. What 
could be the meaning of all this ? Was Toad-in-the-hole 
mad? or how? Soon after the secret wa§ explained: in 
more than a figurative sense "the murder was out." For 
in came the London morning papers, by which it appeared 5 
that, but three days before, a murder the most superb of 
the century by many degrees had occurred in the heart of 
London. I need hardly say that this was the great exter- 
minating chcf-d^ (Euvre of W^illiams at Mr. Marr's, No. 29 
Ratcliffe Highway. That was the debut of the artist; at 10 
least for anything the public knew. What occurred at Mr. 
Williamson's twelve nights afterwards — the second work 
turned out from the same chisel — some people pronounced 
even superior. But Toad-in-the-hole always "reclaimed," 
he was even angry, at such comparisons. "This vulgar 15 
gout de cofnparaison, as La Bruyere calls it," he would often 
remark, "will be our ruin ; each work has its own separate 
characteristics — each in and for itself is incomparable. 
One, perhaps, might suggest the ' Iliad ' — the other the 
'Odyssey': but what do you get by such comparisons? 20 
Neither ever was or will be surpassed ; and, when you've 
talked for hours, you must still come back to that." Vain, 
however, as all criticism might be, he often said that vol- 
umes might be written on each case for itself ; and he even 
proposed to publish a quarto on the subject. 25 

Meantime, how had Toad-in-the-hole happened to hear of 
this great work of art so early in the morning ? He had 
received an account by express, despatched by a corre- 
spondent in London who watched the progress of art on 
Toad's behalf, with a general commission to send off a 30 
j special express, at whatever cost, in the event of any esti- 
mable works appearing. The express arrived in the night- 
time ; Toad-in-the-hole was then gone to bed ; he had been 
muttering and grumbling for hours ; but of course he was 



346 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

called up. On reading the account, he threw his arms 
round the express, declared him his brother and his pre- 
server, and expressed his regret at not having it in his 
power to knight him. We amateurs, having heard that he 
5 was abroad, and therefore had ?wt hanged himself, made 
sure of soon seeing him amongst us. Accordingly he soon 
arrived ; seized every man's hand as he passed him — 
wrung it almost frantically, and kept ejaculating, "Why, 
now, here's something like a murder! — this is the real 

lo thing — this is genuine — this is what you can approve, 
can recommend to a friend: this — says every man, on 
reflection — this is the thing that ought to be! Such 
works are enough to make us all young." And in fact 
the general opinion is that Toad-in-the-hole would have 

15 died but for this regeneration of art, which he called a 
second age of Leo the Tenth ; and it was our duty, he 
said, solemnly to commemorate it. At present, and nt 
attendant, he proposed that the club should meet and dine 
together. A dinner, therefore, was given by the club ; 

20 to which all amateurs were invited from a distance of 
one hundred miles. 

Of this dinner there are ample shorthand notes amongst 
the archives of the club. But they are not "extended," to 
speak diplomatically ; and the reporter who only could give 

25 the whole report /;/ exte?iso is missing — I believe, murdered. 
Meantime, in years long after that day, and on an occasion 
perhaps equally interesting, viz., the turning up of Thugs 
and Thuggism, another dinner was given. Of this I myself 
kept notes, for fear of another accident to the shorthand 

30 reporter. And I here subjoin them. 

Toad-in-the-hole, I must mention, was present at this 
dinner. In fact, it was one of its sentimental incidents. 
Being as old as the valleys at the dinner of 181 2, naturally 
he was as old as the hills at the Thug dinner of 1838. He 



MURDER AS ONE OF THE FINE ARTS 347 

had taken to wearing his beard again ; why, or with what 
view, it passes my persimmon to tell you. But so it was. 
And his appearance was most benign and venerable. Noth- 
ing could equal the angelic radiance of his smile as he 
inquired after the unfortunate reporter (whom, as a piece 5 
of private scandal, I should tell you that he was himself 
supposed to have murdered in a rapture of creative art). 
The answer was, with roars of laughter, from the under- 
sheriff of our county — "Non est inventus." Toad-in-the- 
hole laughed outrageously at this : in fact, we all thought he 10 
was choking ; and, at the earnest request of the company, 
a musical composer furnished a most beautiful glee upon 
the occasion, which was sung five times after dinner, with 
universal applause and inextinguishable laughter, the words 
being these (and the chorus so contrived, as most beauti- 15 
fully to mimic the peculiar laughter of Toad-in-the-hole) : — 

" Et interrogatum est a Toad-in-the-hole — Ubi est ille reporter? 
Et responsum est cum cachinno — Non est inventicsr 

Chorus. 

" Deinde iteratum est ab omnibus, cum cachinnatione undulante, 

trepidante — Non est inventus T 20 

Toad-in-the-hole, I ought to mention, about nine years 



before, when an express from Edinburgh brought him the 
earliest intelligence of the Burke-and-Hare revolution in the 
art, went mad upon the spot, and, instead of a pension to 
the express for even one life, or a knighthood, endeavoured 25 
to burke him; in consequence of which he was put into 
a strait-waistcoat. And that was the reason we had no 
dinner then. But now all of us were alive and kicking, 
strait-waistcoaters and others ; in fact, not one absentee 
was reported upon the entire roll. There were also many 30 
ioreign amateurs present, Dinner being over, and the 



348 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

cloth drawn, there was a general call made for the new glee 
of Non est ifive?ttus ; but, as this would have interfered with 
the requisite gravity of the company during the earlier 
toasts, I overruled the call. After the national toasts had 

S been given, the first official toast of the day was The Old 
Man of the Moimtains — drunk in solemn silence. 

Toad-in-the-hole returned thanks in a neat speech. He 
likened himself to the Old Man of the Mountains in a few 
brief allusions that made the company yell with laughter ; 

lo and he concluded with giving the health of 

Mr. von Hammer, with many thanks to him for his learned 
History of the Old Man and his subjects the Assassins. 

Upon this I rose and said that doubtless most of the 
company were aware of the distinguished place assigned 

15 by Orientalists to the very learned Turkish scholar. Von 
Hammer the Austrian ; that he had made the profoundest 
researches into our art, as connected with those early and 
eminent artists, the Syrian assassins in the period of the 
Crusaders ; that his work had been for several years 

20 deposited, as a rare treasure of art, in the library of the 
club. Even the author's name, gentlemen, pointed him 

out as the historian of our art — Von Hammer 

"Yes, yes," interrupted Toad-in-the-hole, "Von Hammer 
— he's the man for a malleus ha^reticorum. You all know 

25 what consideration Williams bestowed on the hammer, 
or the ship-carpenter's mallet, which is the same thing. 
Gentlemen, I give you another great hammer — Charles 
the Hammer, the Marteau, or, in old French, the Martel : 
he hammered the Saracens till they were all as dead as 

30 doornails." 

" Charles the Hammer, with all the honours." 
But the explosion of Toad-in-the-hole, together with the 
uproarious cheers for the grandpapa of Charlemagne, had 
now made the company unmanageable. The orchestra was 



MURDER AS ONE OF THE FINE ARTS 349 

again challenged with shouts the stormiest for the new 
glee. I foresaw a tempestuous evening; and I ordered 
myself to be strengthened with three waiters on each side, 

— the vice-president with as many. Symptoms of unruly 
enthusiasm were beginning to show out ; and I own that I 5 
myself was considerably excited as the orchestra opened 
with its storm of music and the impassioned glee began 

— " Et interrogatum est a Toad-in-the-hole — Ubi est ille 
Reporter ? " And the frenzy of the passion became abso- 
lutely convulsing as the full chorus fell in — " Et iteratum 10 
est ab omnibus — No?i est iJiventus.'" 

The next toast was — The Jewish Sicarii. 

Upon which I made the following explanation to the 
company: — ''Gentlemen, I am sure it will interest you 
all to hear that the Assassins, ancient as they were, had a 15 
race of predecessors in the very same country. All over 
Syria, but particularly in Palestine, during the early years 
of the Emperor Nero, there was a band of murderers, who 
prosecuted their studies in a very novel manner. They 
did not practise in the night-time, or in lonely places ; 20 
but, justly considering that great crowds are in themselves 
a sort of darkness by means of the dense pressure, and 
the impossibility of finding out who it was that gave 
the blow, they mingled with mobs everywhere ; particu- 
larly at the great paschal feast in Jerusalem ; where they 25 
actually had the audacity, as Josephus assures us, to press 
into the temple — and whom should they choose for oper- 
ating upon but Jonathan himself, the Pontifex Maximus ? 
They murdered him, gentlemen, as beautifully as if they 
had had him alone on a moonless night in a dark lane. 30 
And, when it was asked who was the murderer, and 
where he was " 

"Why, then, it was answered," interrupted Toad-in-the- 
hole, '^''Non est inve?itusy And then, in spite of all I 



350 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCEY 

could do or say, the orchestra opened, and the whole 
company began — " Et interrogatum est a Toad-in-the- 
hole — Ubi est ille Sicarius ? Et responsum est ab omni- 
bus — No7i est inventus y 
5 When the tempestuous chorus had subsided, I began 
again : — '* Gentlemen, you will find a very circumstantial 
account of the Sicarii in at least three different parts of 
Josephus : once in Book XX, sec. v, c. viii, of his ' Antiq- 
uities ' ; once in Book I of his 'Wars': but in sec. x of 

10 the chapter first cited you will find a particular description 
of their tooling. This is what he says : — ' They tooled 
with small scimitars not much different from the Persian 
aci7iacce^ but more curved, and for all the world most like 
the Roman semi-lunar sicce.'' It is perfectly magnificent, 

15 gentlemen, to hear the sequel of their history. Perhaps 
the only case on record where a regular army of murder- 
ers was assembled, a Justus exercitus, was in the case of 
these Sicarii. They mustered in such strength in the 
wilderness that Festus himself was obliged to march 

20 against them with the Roman legionary force. A pitched 
battle ensued ; and this army of amateurs was all cut to 
pieces in the desert. Heavens, gentlemen, what a sub- 
lime picture! The Roman legions — the wilderness — 
Jerusalem in the distance — an army of murderers in the 

25 foreground ! " 

The next toast was — "To the further improvement 
of Tooling, and thanks to the Committee for their ser- 
vices." 

Mr. L., on behalf of the Committee who had reported 

30 on that subject, returned thanks. He made an interesting 
extract from the report, by which it appeared how very 
much stress had been laid formerly on the mode of tooling 
by the Fathers, both Greek and Latin. In confirmation of 
this pleasing fact, he made a very striking statement in 



MURDER AS ONE OF THE FINE ARTS 351 

reference to the earliest work of antediluvian art. Father 
Mersenne, that learned French Roman Catholic, in page 
one thousand four hundred and thirty-one of his operose 
Commentary on Genesis, mentions, on the authority of 
several rabbis, that the quarrel of Cain with Abel was 5 
about a young woman; that, according to various accounts, 
Cain had tooled with his teeth (Abelem fuisse morsibus 
dilaceratum a Cain) ; according to many others, with the 
jawbone of an ass, — which is the tooling adopted by 
most painters. But it is pleasing to the mind of sensi- 10 
bility to know that, as science expanded, sounder views 
were adopted. One author contends for a pitchfork, St. 
Chrysostom for a sword, Irenaeus for a scythe, and Pru- 
dentius, the Christian poet of the fourth century, for a 
hedging-bill. This last writer delivers his opinion thus: — 15 

" Frater, probatas sanctitatis £emulus, 
Germana curvo colla frangit sarculo " : 

/.<?., his brother, jealous of his attested sanctity, fractures 
his fraternal throat with a curved hedging-bill. "All 
which is respectfully submitted by your committee, not 20 
so much as decisive of the question (for it is not), but in 
order to impress upon the youthful mind the importance 
which has ever been attached to the quality of the tooling 
by such men as Chrysostom and Irenoeus." 

" Irenaeus be hanged ! " said Toad-in-the-hole, who now 25 
rose impatiently to give the next toast : — *' Our Irish 
friends ; wishing them a speedy revolution in their mode 
of tooling, as well as in everything else connected with 
the art ! " 

"Gentlemen, I'll tell you the plain truth. Every day of 3° 
the year when we take up a paper we read the opening 
of a murder. We- say, This is good, this is charming, 
this is excellent ! But, behold you ! scarcely have we read 



352 SELECTIONS FROM BE QUINCE Y 

a little farther before the word Tipperary or Ballina-some- 
thing betrays the Irish manufacture. Instantly we loathe 
it ; we call to the waiter ; we say, ' Waiter, take away this 
paper ; send it out of the house ; it is absolutely a scandal 
5 in the nostrils of all just taste.' I appeal to every man 
whether, on finding a murder (otherwise perhaps promis- 
ing enough) to be Irish, he does not feel himself as much 
insulted as when, Madeira being ordered, he finds it to be 
Cape, or when, taking up what he takes to be a mushroom, 

10 it turns out what children call a toad-stool ? Tithes, 
politics, something wrong in principle, vitiate every Irish 
murder. Gentlemen, this must be reformed, or Ireland 
will not be a land to live in ; at least, if we do live there, 
we must import all our murders, that's clear." Toad-in- 

15 the-hole sat down, growling with suppressed wrath; and 
the uproarious " Hear, hear ! " clamorously expressed the 
general concurrence. 

The next toast was — " The sublime epoch of Burkism 
and Harism ! " 

20 This was drunk with enthusiasm ; and one of the mem- 
bers who spoke to the question made a very curious com- 
munication to the company : — " Gentlemen, we fancy 
Burkism to be a pure invention of our own times ; and in 
fact no Pancirollus has ever enumerated this branch of art 

25 when writing de rebus deperditis. Still, I have ascertained 
that the essential principle of this variety in the art was 
known to the ancients ; although, like the art of painting 
upon glass, of making the myrrhine cups, etc., it was lost 
in the dark ages for want of encouragement. In the famous 

30 collection of Greek epigrams made by Planudes is one 
upon a very fascinating case of Burkism : it is a perfect 
little gem of art. The epigram itself I cannot lay my hand 
upon at this moment; but the following is an abstract of it 
by Salmasius, as I find it in his notes on Vopiscus : * Est 



MURDER AS ONE OF THE FINE ARTS 353 

et elegans epigramma Lucilii, ^ ubi medicus et poUinctor 
de compacto sic egerunt ut medicus aegros omnes curae 
suae commissos occideret.' This was the basis of the 
contract, you see, — that on the one part the doctor, for 
himself and his assigns, doth undertake and contract duly 5 
and truly to murder all the patients committed to his 
charge: but why? There lies the beauty of the case — 
' Et ut pollinctori amico suo traderet poUingendos.' The 
pollinctor^ you are aware, was a person whose business it 
was to dress and prepare dead bodies for burial. The 10 
original ground of the transaction appears to have been 
sentimental: 'He was my friend,' says the murderous 
doctor, — 'he was dear to me,' — in speaking of the pol- 
linctor. But the law, gentlemen, is stern and harsh : the 
law will not hear of these tender motives: to sustain a 15 
contract of this nature in law, it is essential that a ' con- 
sideration ' should be given. Now, what %vas the consider- 
ation t For thus far all is on the side of the pollinctor : 
he will be well paid for his services ; but meantime the 
generous, the noble-minded doctor gets nothing. What was 20 
the equivalent, again I ask, which the law would insist 
on the doctor's taking, in order to establish that 'consid- 
eration ' without which the contract had no force ? You 
shall hear : ' Et ut pollinctor vicissim TcAa/xwms quos fura- 
' batur de pollinctione mortuorum medico mitteret donis ad 25 
' alliganda vulnera eorum quos curabat ' ; />., and that recip- 
rocally the pollinctor should transmit to the physician, as 
free gifts for the binding up of wounds in those whom 
he treated medically, the belts or trusses (TeXa/xcums) 

1 The epigram, which had been preserved by Planudes in its Greek 
form, is here attributed by Salmasius to the Latin satirical poet, Caius 
Lucilius, who was born about B.C. 148, and died about B.C. 103. It is 
not found, however, among the preserved fragments of Lucilius ; and 
the Greek form of the epigram is anonymous. 



354 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCEV 

which he had succeeded in purloining in the course of 
his functions about the corpses. 

" Now the case is clear : the whole went on a principle 
of reciprocity which would have kept up the trade for ever. 
5 The doctor was also a surgeon : he could not murder all 
his patients : some of the patients must be retained intact. 
For these he wanted linen bandages. But, unhappily, the 
Romans wore woollen ; on which account it was that they 
bathed so often. Meantime, there mas linen to be had in 

10 Rome ; but it was monstrously dear ; and the reXa/xwi/e?, or 
linen swathing bandages, in which superstition obliged them 
to bind up corpses, would answer capitally for the surgeon. 
The doctor, therefore, contracts to furnish his friend with 
a constant succession of corpses, — provided, and be it 

15 understood always, that his sad friend, in return, should 
supply him with one-half of the articles he would receive 
from the friends of the parties murdered or to be murdered. 
The doctor invariably recommended his invaluable friend 
the pollinctor (whom let us call the undertaker) ; the under- 

20 taker, with equal regard to the sacred rights of friendship, 
uniformly recommended the doctor. Like Pylades and 
Orestes, they were models of a perfect friendship : in their 
lives they were lovely ; and on the gallows, it is to be hoped, 
they were not divided. 

25 "Gentlemen, it makes me laugh horribly when I think 
of those two friends drawing and re-drawing on each other : 
* Pollinctor in account with Doctor, debtor by sixteen 
corpses : creditor by forty-five bandages, two of which 
damaged.' Their names unfortunately are lost ; but I 

30 conceive they must have been Quintus Burkius and Publius 
Harius. By the way, gentlemen, has anybody heard lately 
of Hare ? I understand he is comfortably settled in Ire- 
land, considerably to the west, and does a little business 
now and then ; but, as he observes with a sigh, only as a 



MURDER AS ONE OP THE FINE ARTS 355 

retailer — nothing like the fine thriving wholesale concern 
so carelessly blown up at Edinburgh. ' You see what comes 
of neglecting business ' — is the chief moral, the ctti/xv^iov, 
as ^sop would say, which Hare draws from his past 
experience." 5 

At length came the toast of the day — Thugdom- in all its 
branches. 

The speeches attempted at this crisis of the dinner were 
past all counting. But the applause was so furious, the 
music so stormy, and the crashing of glasses so incessant, 10 
from the general resolution never again to drink an inferior 
toast from the same glass, that I am unequal to the task of 
reporting. Besides which, Toad-in-the-hole now became 
ungovernable. He kept firing pistols in every direction ; 
sent his servant for a blunderbuss, and talked of loading 15 
with ball-cartridge. We conceived that his former madness 
had returned at the mention of Burke and Hare ; or that, 
being again weary of life, he had resolved to go off in a 
general massacre. This we could not think of allowing ; 
it became indispensable, therefore, to kick him out ; which 20 
we did with universal consent, the whole company lending 
their toes uno pede, as I may say, though pitying his gray 
hairs and his angelic smile. During the operation the 
orchestra poured in their old chorus. The universal com- 
pany sang, and (what surprised us most of all) Toad-in-the- 25 
hole joined us furiously in singing — 

*' Et interrogatum est ab omnibus — Ubi est ille Toad-in-the-hole ? 
Et responsum est ab omnibus — Non est inventus^ 



JOAN OF ARC! \ 

What is to be thought of her'i What is to be thought of 
the poor shepherd girl from the hills and forests of Lor- 
raine, that — like the Hebrew shepherd boy from the hills 
and forests of Judea — rose suddenly out of the quiet, out 
5 of the safety, out of the religious inspiration, rooted in deep 
pastoral solitudes, to a station in the van of armies, and to 
the more perilous station at the right hand of kings ? The 
Hebrew boy inaugurated his patriotic mission by an act^ by 
a victorious act, such as no man could deny. But so did 
lo the girl of Lorraine, if we read her story as it was read by 
those who saw her nearest. Adverse armies bore witness 

i".(4rr"; — Modern France, that should know a great deal better 
than myself, insists that the name is not D'Arc — i.e., of Arc — but 
Bare. Now it happens sometimes that, if a person whose position 
guarantees his access to the best information will content himself with 
gloomy dogmatism, striking the table with his fist, and saying in a 
terrific voice, " It /s so, and there's an end of it," one bows defer- 
entially, and submits. But, if, unhappily for himself, won by this 
docility, he relents too amiably into reasons and arguments, probably 
one raises an insurrection against him that may never be crushed ; for 
in the fields of logic one can skirmish, perhaps, as well as he. Had he 
confined himself to dogmatism, he would have intrenched his position 
in darkness, and have hidden his own vulnerable points. But coming 
down to base reasons he lets in light, and one sees where to plant the 
blows. Now, the worshipful reason of modern France for disturb- 
ing the old received spelling is that Jean Hordal, a descendant of 
La Pucelle's brother, spelled the name Dare in 1612. But what of 
that? It is notorious that what small matter of spelling Providence 
had thought fit to disburse amongst man in the seventeenth century 
was all monopolised bv printers ; now, M. Hordal was not a printer. 

356 



JOAN OF ARC 357 

to the boy as no pretender ; but so they did to the gentle 
girl. Judged by the voices of all who saw them from a 
station of good will, both were found true and loyal to any 
promises involved in their first acts. Enemies it was that 
made the difference between their subsequent fortunes. The 5 
boy rose to a splendour and a noonday prosperity, both 
personal and public, that rang through the records of his 
people, and became a byword among his posterity for a 
thousand years, until the sceptre was departing from Judah. 
The poor, forsaken girl, on the contrary, drank not herself 10 
from that cup of rest which she had secured for France. She 
never sang together with the songs that rose in her native 
Domre'my as echoes to the departing steps of invaders. 
She mingled not in the festal dances at Vaucouleurs which 
celebrated in rapture the redemption of France. No! for 15 
.her voice was then silent; no! for her feet were dust. 
Pure, innocent, noble-hearted girl ! whom, from earliest 
youth, ever I believed in as full of truth and self-sacrifice, 
this was amongst the strongest pledges for thy truth, that 
never once— no, not for a moment of weakness — didst 20 
thou revel in the vision of coronets and honour from man. ^ 
Coronets for thee ! Oh, no ! Honours, if they come when 
all is over, are for those that share thy blood.^ Daughter 
of Domre'my, when the gratitude of thy king shall awaken, 
thou wilt be sleeping the sleep of the dead. Call her, King 25 
of France, but she will not hear thee. Cite her by the 
apparitors to come and receive a robe of honour, but she 
will be found e?i contumace. When the thunders of uni- 
versal France, as even yet may happen, shall proclaim the 
grandeur of the poor shepherd girl that gave up all for her 30 
country, thy ear, young shepherd girl, will have been deaf 
for five centuries. To suffer and to do, that was thy 

1" Those that share thy blood" : — A collateral relative of Joanna's 
was subsequently ennobled by the title of Dti Lys. 



358 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

portion in this life ; that was thy destiny ; and not for a 
moment was it hidden from thyself. Life, thou saidst, is 
short ; and the sleep which is in the grave is long ; let me 
use that life, so transitory, for the glory of those heavenly 

5 dreams destined to comfort the sleep which is so long ! 
This pure creature — pure from every suspicion of even a 
visionary self-interest, even as she was pure in senses more 
obvious — never once did this holy child, as regarded her- 
self, relax from her belief in the darkness that was travel- 

10 ling to meet her. She might not prefigure the very manner 
of her death ; she saw not in vision, perhaps, the aerial 
altitude of the fiery scaffold, the spectators without end, 
on every road, pouring into Rouen as to a coronation, the 
surging smoke, the volleying flames, the hostile faces all 

15 around, the pitying eye that lurked but here and there, 
until nature and imperishable truth broke loose from arti- 
ficial restraints — these might not be apparent through the 
mists of the hurrying future. But the voice that called 
her to death, that she heard for ever. 

20 Great was the throne of France even in those days, and 
great was He that sat upon it ; but well Joanna knew that 
not the throne, nor he that sat upon it, was for her ; but, 
on the contrary, that she was for them; not she by them, 
but they by her, should rise from the dust. Gorgeous were 

25 the lilies of France, and for centuries had the privilege to 
spread their beauty over land and sea, until, in another 
century, the wrath of God and man combined to wither 
them ; but well Joanna knew, early at Domre'my she had 
read that bitter truth, that the lilies of France would 

30 decorate no garland for her. Flower nor bud, bell nor 
blossom, would ever bloom for her ! 

But stay. What reason is there for taking up this sub- 
ject of Joanna precisely in the spring of 1847 ? Might it 



JOAN OF ARC 359 

not have been left till the spring of 1947, or, perhaps, left 
till called for ? Yes, but it is called for, and clamorously. 
You are aware, reader, that amongst the many original 
thinkers whom modern France has produced, one of the 
reputed leaders is M. Michelet. All these writers are of 5 
a revolutionary cast ; not in a political sense merely, but 
in all senses ; mad, oftentimes, as March hares ; crazy 
with the laughing gas of recovered liberty ; drunk with the 
wine cup of their mighty Revolution, snorting, whinnying, 
throwing up their heels, like wild horses in the boundless 10 
pampas, and running races of defiance with snipes, or with 
the winds, or with their own shadows, if they can find noth- 
ing else to challenge. Some time or other, I, that have 
leisure to read, may introduce yoii^ that have not, to two 
or three dozen of these writers; of whom I can assure 15 
you beforehand that they are often profound, and at inter- 
vals are even as impassioned as if they were come of our 
best English blood. But now, confining our attention to 
M. Michelet, we in England — who know him best by his 
worst book, the book against priests, etc. — know him dis- 20 
advantageously. That book is a rhapsody of incoherence. 
But his " History of France " is quite another thing. A 
man, in whatsoever craft he sails, cannot stretch away out 
of sight when he is linked to the windings of the shore by 
towing-ropes of History. Facts, and the consequences 25 
of facts, draw the writer back to the falconer's lure from 
the giddiest heights of speculation. Here, therefore — in 
his " France " — if not always free from flightiness, if now 
and then off like a rocket for an airy wheel in the clouds, 
M. Michelet, with natural politeness, never forgets that 30 
he has left a large audience waiting for him on earth, and 
gazing upward in anxiety for his return ; return, therefore, 
he does. But History, though clear of certain temptations 
in one direction, has separate dangers of its own. It is 



360 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

impossible so to write a history of France, or of England 
— works becoming every hour more indispensable to the 
inevitably political man of this day — without perilous 
openings for error. If I, for instance, on the part of 
5 England, should happen to turn my labours into that 
channel, and (on the model of Lord Percy going to 
Chevy Chase) 

" A vow to God should make 

My pleasure in the Michelet woods 
o Three summer days to take," 



probably, from simple delirium, I might hunt M. Michelet 
into deHrium tremens. Two strong angels stand by the side 
of History, whether French history or English, as heraldic 
supporters : the angel of research on the left hand, that 

15 must read millions of dusty parchments, and of pages 
blotted with lies ; the angel of meditation on the right 
hand, that must cleanse these lying records with fire, even 
as of old the draperies of asbestos were cleansed, and must 
quicken them into regenerated life. Willingly I acknowl- 

20 edge that no man will ever avoid innumerable errors of 
detail; with so vast a compass of ground to traverse, 
this is impossible ; but such errors (though I have a 
bushel on hand, at M. Michelet's service) are not the 
game I chase ; it is the bitter and unfair spirit in which 

25 M. Michelet writes against England. Even that, after all, 
is but my secondary object ; the real one is Joanna, the 
Pucelle d'Orleans herself. 

I am not going to write the history of La Pucelle : to do 
this, or even circumstantially to report the history of her 

30 persecution and bitter death, of her struggle with false 
witnesses and with ensnaring judges, it would be neces- 
sary to have before us all the documents, and therefore 



JOAN OF ARC 361 

the collection only now forthcoming in Paris.^ But 7ny 
purpose is narrower. There have been great thinkers, 
disdaining the careless judgments of contemporaries, who 
have thrown themselves boldly on the judgment of a far 
posterity, that should have had time to review, to ponder, 5 
to compare. There have been great actors on the stage 
of tragic humanity that might, with the same depth of 
confidence, have appealed from the levity of compatriot 
friends — too heartless for the sublime interest of their 
story, and too impatient for the labour of sifting its per- 10 
plexities — to the magnanimity and justice of enemies. 
To this class belongs the Maid of Arc. The ancient 
Romans were too faithful to the ideal of grandeur in 
themselves not to relent, after a generation or two, before 
the grandeur of Hannibal. Mithridates, a more doubtful 15 
person, yet, merely for the magic perseverance of his 
indomitable malice, won from the same Romans the only 
real honour that ever he received on earth. And we Eng- 
lish have ever shown the same homage to stubborn 
enmity. To work unflinchingly for the ruin of England ; 20 
to say through life, by word and by deed, Delenda est 
Anglia Vidrix ! — that one purpose of malice, faithfully 
pursued, has quartered some people upon our national 
funds of homage as by a perpetual annuity. Better than 
an inheritance of service rendered to England herself has 25 
sometimes proved the most insane hatred to England. 
Hyder Ali, even his son Tippoo, though so far inferior, 
and Napoleon, have all benefited by this disposition 
among ourselves to exaggerate the merit of diabolic 
enmity. Not one of these men was ever capable, in a 30 
solitary instance, of praising an enemy (what do you say 

i"C>«/j/ now forthcomijig'''' : — In 1847 began the publication (from 
official records) of Joanna's trial. It was interrupted, I fear, by the 
concisions of 1848 ; and whether even yet finished I do not know. 



362 SELECTIONS FROM BE QUINCE Y 

to that, reader ?) ; and yet in their behalf, we consent to 
forget, not their crimes only, but (which is worse) their 
hideous bigotry and anti-magnanimous egotism — for 
nationality it was not. Suffren, and some half dozen of 
5 other French nautical heroes, because rightly they did 
us all the mischief they could (which was really great), 
are names justly reverenced in England. On the same 
principle, La Pucelle d'Orle'ans, the victorious enemy of 
England, has been destined to receive her deepest com- 

10 memoration from the magnanimous justice of Englishmen. 

Joanna, as we in England should call her, but according 

to her own statement, Jeanne (or, as M. Michelet asserts, 

Jean^) D'Arc was born at Domremy, a village on the 

marches of Lorraine and Champagne, and dependent upon 

15 the town of Vaucouleurs. I have called her a Lorrainer, 
not simply because the word is prettier,, but because 
Champagne too odiously reminds us English of what are 
for us imaginary wines — which, undoubtedly. La Pucelle 
tasted as rarely as we English: we English, because the 

20 champagne of London is chiefly grown in Devonshire; La 
Pucelle, because the champagne of Champagne never, by any 

i"y^^;/"; — M. Michelet asserts that there was a mystical meaning 
at that era in calling a child Jean ; it implied a secret commendation of 
a child, if not a dedication, to St. John the evangelist, the beloved 
disciple, the apostle of love and mysterious visions. But,. really, as the 
name was so exceedingly common, few people will detect a mystery in 
calling a boy by the name of Jack, though it does seem mysterious to call 
a girl Jack. It may be less so in France, where a beautiful practice 
has always prevailed of giving a boy his mother's name — preceded and 
strengthened by a male name, as Charles Anne, Victor Victoire. In 
cases where a mother's memory has been unusually dear to a son, this 
vocal memento of her, locked into the circle of his own name, gives to 
it the tenderness of a testamentary relic, or a funeral ring. I presume, 
therefore, that La Pucelle must have borne the baptismal name of 
Jeanne Jean ; the latter with no reference, perhaps, to so sublime a 
person as St. John, but simply to some relative. 



JOAN OF ARC 363 

chance, flowed into the fountain of Domremy, from which 
only she drank. M. Michelet will have her to be a Cham- 
penoise^ and for no better reason than that she " took after 
her father," who happened to be a Champenois. 

These disputes, however, turn on refinements too nice. 5 
Domremy stood upon the frontiers, and, like other fron- 
tiers, produced a mixed race, representing the cis and the 
trans. A river (it is true) formed the boundary line at 
this point — the river Meuse ; and that, in old days, might 
have divided the populations ; but in these days it did 10 
not ; there were bridges, there were ferries, and weddings 
crossed from the right bank to the left. Here lay two 
great roads, not so much for travellers that were few, as 
for armies that were too many by half. These two roads, 
one of which was the great highroad between France and 15 
Germany, decussated at this very point ; which is a learned 
way of saying that they formed a St. Andrew's Cross, or 
letter X. I hope the compositor will choose a good large 
X; in which case the point of intersection, the locus of 
conflux and intersection for these four diverging arms, 20 
will finish the reader's geographical education, by showing 
him to a hair's-breadth where it was that Domremy stood. 
These roads, so grandly situated, as great trunk arteries 
between two mighty realms,^ and haunted for ever by wars 
or rumours of wars, decussated (for anything I know to 25 
the contrary) absolutely under Joanna's bedroom window ; 
one rolling away to the right, past M. D 'Arc's old barn, 
and the other unaccountably preferring to sweep round 
that odious man's pig-sty to the left. 

On whichever side of the border chance had thrown 30 
Joanna, the same love to France would have been nurtured. 

1 And reminding one of that inscription, so justly admired by Paul 
Richter, which a Russian Czarina placed on a guide-post near Moscow : 
This is the road that leads to Constantinople. 



364 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCEY 

For it is a strange fact, noticed by M. Michelet and 
others, that the Dukes of Bar and Lorraine had for 
generations pursued the policy of eternal warfare with 
France on their own account, yet also of eternal amity 
5 and league with France in case anybody else presumed 
to attack her. Let peace settle upon France, and before 
long you might rely upon seeing the little vixen Lorraine 
flying at the throat of France. Let France be assailed 
by a formidable enemy, and instantly you saw a Duke of 

10 Lorraine insisting on having his own throat cut in sup- 
port of France ; which favour accordingly was cheerfully 
granted to him in three great successive battles : twice 
by the English, viz., at Crecy and Agincourt, once by 
the Sultan at Nicopolis. 

15 This sympathy with France during great eclipses, in 
those that during ordinary seasons were always teasing 
her with brawls and guerilla inroads, strengthened the 
natural piety to France of those that were confessedly 
the children of her own house. The outposts of France, 

20 as one may call the great frontier provinces, were of all 
localities the most devoted to the Fleurs de Lys. To wit- 
ness, at any great crisis, the generous devotion to these 
lilies of the little fiery cousin that in gentler weather was 
for ever tilting at the breast of France, could not but fan 

25 the zeal of France's legitimate daughters ; while to occupy 
a post of honour on the frontiers against an old hereditary 
enemy of France would naturally stimulate this zeal by a 
sentiment of martial pride, by a sense of danger always 
threatening, and of hatred always smouldering. That great 

30 four-headed road was a perpetual memento to patriotic 
ardour. To say " This way lies the road to Paris, and that 
other way to Aix-la-Chapelle ; this to Prague, that to 
Vienna," nourished the warfare of the heart by daily min- 
istrations of sense. The eye that watched for the gleams 



JOAN OF ARC 365 

of lance or helmet from the hostile frontier, the ear that 
listened for the groaning of wheels, made the highroad 
itself, with its relations to centres so remote, into a 
manual of patriotic duty. 

The situation, therefore, locally^ of Joanna was full of 5 
profound suggestions to a heart that listened for the 
stealthy steps of change and fear that too surely were 
in motion. But, if the place were grand, the time, the 
burden of the time, was far more so. The air overhead 
in its upper chambers was hurtling v^ith. the obscure sound ; 10 
was dark with sullen fermenting of storms that had been 
gathering for a hundred and thirty years. The battle of 
Agincourt in Joanna's childhood had reopened the wounds 
of France. Crecy and Poictiers, those withering over- 
throws for the chivalry of France, had, before Agincourt 15 
occurred, been tranquilised by more than half a century ; 
but this resurrection of their trumpet wails made the whole 
series of battles and endless skirmishes take their stations 
as parts in one drama. The graves that had closed sixty 
years ago seemed to fly open in sympathy with a sorrow 20 
that echoed their own. The monarchy of France laboured 
in extremity, rocked and reeled like a ship fighting with 
the darkness of monsoons. The madness of the poor king 
(Charles VI), falling in at such a crisis, like the case of 
women labouring in child-birth during the storming of a 25 
city, trebled the awfulness of the time. Even the wild 
story of the incident which had immediately occasioned 
the explosion of this madness — the case of a man un- 
known, gloomy, and perhaps maniacal himself, coming out 
of a forest at noonday, laying his hand upon the bridle of 3° 
the king's horse, checking him for a moment to say, " Oh, 
king, thou art betrayed," and then vanishing, no man knew 
whither, as he had appeared for no man knew what — fell 
in with the universal prostration of mind that laid France 



-^ 



366 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 



on her knees, as before the slow unweaving of some ancient 
prophetic doom. The famines, the extraordinary diseases, 
the insurrections of the peasantry up and down Europe — 
these were chords struck from the same mysterious harp ; 
5 but these were transitory chords. There had been others 
of deeper and more ominous sound. The termination of 
the Crusades, the destruction of the Templars, the Papal 
interdicts, the tragedies caused or suffered by the house of 
Anjou, and by the Emperor — these were full of a more 

10 permanent significance. But, since then, the colossal fig- 
ure of feudalism was seen standing, as it were on tiptoe, at 
Crecy, for flight from earth : that was a revolution unparal- 
leled ; yet that was a trifle by comparison with the more 
fearful revolutions that were mining below the Church. By 

15 her own internal schisms, by the abominable spectacle of 
a double Pope — so that no man, except through political 
bias, could even guess which was Heaven's vicegerent, and 
which the creature of Hell — the Church was rehearsing, 
as in still earlier forms she had already rehearsed, those 

20 vast rents in her foundations which no man should ever 
heal. 

These were the loftiest peaks of the cloudland in the 
skies that to the scientific gazer first caught the colors of 
the 7iew morning in advance. But the whole vast range 

25 alike of sweeping glooms overhead dwelt upon all medi- 
tative minds, even upon those that could not distinguish 
the tendencies nor decipher the forms. It was, therefore, not 
her own age alone, as affected by its immediate calamities, 
that lay with such weight upon Joanna's mind, but her own 

30 age as one section in a vast mysterious drama, unweaving 
through a century back, and drawing nearer continually to 
some dreadful crisis. Cataracts and rapids were heard 
roaring ahead ; and signs were seen far back, by help of 
old men's memories, which answered secretly to signs now 



JOAN OF ARC 367 

coming forward on the eye, even as locks answer to keys. 
It was not wonderful that in such a haunted solitude, with 
such a haunted heart, Joanna should see angelic visions, 
and hear angelic voices. These voices whispered to her 
for ever the duty, self-imposed, of delivering France. Five 5 
years she listened to these monitory voices with internal 
struggles. At length she could resist no longer. Doubt 
gave way ; and she left her home for ever in order to 
present herself at the dauphin's court. 

The education of this poor girl was mean according to 10 
the present standard : was ineffably grand, according to a 
purer philosophic standard : and only not good for our 
age because for us it would be unattainable. She read noth- 
ing, for she could not read ; but she had heard others read 
parts of the Roman martyrology. She wept in sympathy 15 
with the sad " Misereres " of the Romish Church ; she rose 
to heaven with the glad triumphant *' Te Deums " of 
Rome ; she drew her comfort and her vital strength from 
the rites of the same Church. But, next after these spirit- 
ual advantages, she owed most to the advantages of her 20 
situation. The fountain of Domremy was on the brink of 
a boundless forest ; and it was haunted to that degree by 
fairies that the parish priest (cure) was obliged to read 
mass there once a year, in order to keep them in any 
decent bounds. Fairies are important, even in a statistical 25 
view : certain weeds mark poverty in the soil ; fairies mark 
its solitude. As surely as the wolf retires before cities 
does the fairy sequester herself from the haunts of the 
licensed victualer. A village is too much for her nervous 
delicacy ; at most, she can tolerate a distant view of a 30 
hamlet. We may judge, therefore, by the uneasiness and 
extra trouble which they gave to the parson, in what 
strength the fairies mustered at Domremy, and, by a satis- 
factory consequence, how thinly sown with men and women 



368 SELECTIONS FROM BE QUINCE Y 

must have been that region even in its inhabited spots. 
But the forests of Domre'my — those were the glories of 
the land : for in them abode mysterious powers and ancient 
secrets that towered into tragic strength. " Abbeys there 
5 were, and abbey windows" — "like Moorish temples of 
the Hindoos " — that exercised even princely power both in 
Lorraine and in the German Diets. These had their sweet 
bells that pierced the forests for many a league at matins 
or vespers, and each its own dreamy legend. Few enough, 

lo and scattered enough, were these abbeys, so as in no 
degree to disturb the deep solitude of the region ; yet 
many enough to spread a network or awning of Christian 
sanctity over what else might have seemed a heathen wil- 
derness. This sort of religious talisman being secured, a 

15 man the most afraid of ghosts (like myself, suppose, or the 
reader) becomes armed into courage to wander for days in 
their sylvan recesses. The mountains of the Vosges, on 
the eastern frontier of France, have never attracted much 
notice from Europe, except in 18 13-14 for a few brief 

20 months, when they fell within Napoleon's line of defence 
against the Allies. But they are interesting for this among 
other features, that they do not, like some loftier ranges, 
repel woods ; the forests and the hills are on sociable 
terms. " Live and let live " is their motto. For this 

25 reason, in part, these tracts in Lorraine were a favourite 
hunting-ground with the Carlovingian princes. About six 
hundred years before Joanna's childhood, Charlemagne 
was known to have hunted there. That, of itself, was a 
grand incident in the traditions of a forest or a chase. 

30 In these vast forests, also, were to be found (if anywhere 
to be found) those mysterious fawns that tempted solitary 
hunters into visionary and perilous pursuits. Here was 
seen (if anywhere seen) that ancient stag who was already 
nine hundred years old, but possibly a hundred or two more. 



JOAN OF ARC 369 

when met by Charlemagne ; and the thing was put beyond 
doubt by the inscription upon his golden collar. I believe 
Charlemagne knighted the stag ; and, if ever he is met again 
by a king, he ought to be made an earl, or, being upon the 
marches of France, a marquis. Observe, I don't absolutely 5 
vouch for all these things : my own opinion varies. On a 
fine breezy forenoon I am audaciously sceptical ; but as 
twilight sets in my credulity grows steadily, till it becomes 
equal to anything that could be desired. And I have heard 
candid sportsmen declare that, outside of these very forests, 10 
they laughed loudly at all the dim tales connected with 
their haunted solitudes, but, on reaching a spot notoriously 
eighteen miles deep within them, they agreed with Sir 
Roger de Coverley that a good deal might be said on both 
sides. 15 

Such traditions, or any others that (like the stag) con- 
nect distant generations with each other, are, for that 
cause, sublime ; and the sense of the shadowy, connected 
with such appearances that reveal themselves or not accord- 
ing to circumstances, leaves a colouring of sanctity over 20 
ancient forests, even in those minds that utterly reject the 
legend as a fact. 

But, apart from all distinct stories of that order, in any 
solitary frontier between two great empires — as here, for 
instance, or in- the desert between Syria and the Euphrates 25 
— there is an inevitable tendency, in minds of any deep 
sensibility, to people the solitudes with phantom images of 
powers that were of old so vast. Joanna, therefore, in her 
quiet occupation of a shepherdess, would be led continually 
to brood over the political condition of her country by the 30 
traditions of the past no less than by the mementoes of the 
local present. 

M. Michelet, indeed, says that La Pucelle was not a 
shepherdess. I beg his pardon ; she was. What he rests 



370 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

upon I guess pretty well : it is the evidence of a woman 
called Haumette, the most confidential friend of Joanna. 
Now, she is a good witness, and a good girl, and I like 
her ; for she makes a natural and affectionate report of 
5 Joanna's ordinary life. But still, however good she may 
be as a witness, Joanna is better ; and she, when speaking 
to the dauphin, calls herself in the Latin report Bergereta. 
Even Haumette confesses that Joanna tended sheep in her 
girlhood. And I believe that, if Miss Haumette were tak- 

lo ing coffee along with me this very evening (February 12, 
1847) — ^^ which there would be no subject for scandal or 
for maiden blushes, because I am an intense philosopher, 
and Miss H. would be hard upon 450 years old — she 
would admit the following comment upon her evidence 

15 to be right. A Frenchman, about forty years ago — M. 
Simond, in his "Travels " — mentions accidentally the fol- 
lowing hideous scene as one steadily observed and watched 
by himself in chivalrous France not very long before the 
French Revolution : A peasant was plowing ; and the team 

20 that drew his plow was a donkey and a woman. Both were 
regularly harnessed ; both pulled alike. This is bad enough; 
but the Frenchman adds that, in distributing his lashes, 
the peasant was obviously desirous of being impartial ; or, 
if either of the yokefellows had a right to complain, cer- 

25 tainly it was not the donkey. Now, in any country where 
such degradation of females could be tolerated by the 
state of manners, a woman of delicacy would shrink from 
acknowledging, either for herself or her friend, that she 
had ever been addicted to any mode of labour not strictly 

30 domestic ; because, if once owning herself a praedial ser- 
vant, she would be sensible that this confession extended 
by probability in the hearer's thoughts to the having in- 
curred indignities of this horrible kind. Haumette clearly 
thinks it more dignified for Joanna to have been darning 



JOAN OF ARC 371 

the stockings of her horny-hoofed father, M. D'Arc, than 
keeping sheep, lest she might then be suspected of having 
ever done something worse. But, luckily, there was no dan- 
ger of that : Joanna never was in service ; and my opinion 
is that her father should have mended his own stockings, 5 
since probably he was the party to make the holes in them, 
as many a better man than D'Arc does — meaning by that 
not myself, because, though probably a better man than 
D'Arc, I protest against doing anything of the kind. If I 
lived even with Friday in Juan Fernandez, either Friday 10 
must do all the darning, or else it must go undone. The 
better men that I meant were the sailors in the British navy, 
every man of whom mends his own stockings. Who else is 
to do it ? Do you suppose, reader, that the junior lords of 
the admiralty are under articles to darn for the navy ? 15 

The reason, meantime, for my systematic hatred of D'Arc 
is this : There was a story current in France before the 
Revolution, framed to ridicule the pauper aristocracy, who 
happened to have long pedigrees and short rent rolls : viz., 
that a head of such a house, dating from the Crusades, was 20 
overheard saying to his son, a Chevalier of St. Louis, 
" Chevalier^ as-tu dowit au cochon a ma7igerV Now, it is 
clearly made out by the surviving evidence that D'Arc 
would much have preferred continuing to say, " Ma fille^ 
as-tu donne au cochofi a mange?' ?^^ to saying, ^^ Pucelle 2$ 
d'Orleajis^ as-tu sauie ks fleiirs-de-lys V^ There is an old 
English copy of verses which argues thus: 

" If the man that turnips cries 
Cry not when his father dies, 

Then 'tis plain the man had rather 30 

Have a turnip than his father." 

I cannot say that the logic of these verses was ever entirely 
to my satisfaction. I do not see my way through it as 



372 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCEY 

clearly as could be wished. But I see my way most clearly 
through D'Arc ; and the result is — that he would greatly 
have preferred not merely a turnip to his father, but the 
saving a pound or so of bacon to saving the Oriflamme of 
5 France. 

It is probable (as M. Michelet suggests) that the title of 
Virgin or Pucelle had in itself, and apart from the miracu- 
lous stories about her, a secret power over the rude soldiery 
and partisan chiefs of that period ; for in such a person 

lo they saw a representative manifestation of the Virgin Mary, 
who, in a course of centuries, had grown steadily upon the 
popular heart. 

As to Joanna's supernatural detection of the dauphin 
(Charles VII) among three hundred lords and knights, I 

15 am surprised at the credulity which could ever lend itself 
to that theatrical juggle. Who admires more than myself 
the sublime enthusiasm, the rapturous faith in herself, of 
this pure creature ? But I am far from admiring stage 
artifices which not La Pucelle, but the court, must have 

20 arranged ; nor can surrender myself to the conjurer's leger- 
demain, such as may be seen every day for a shilling. 
Southey's "Joan of Arc" was published in 1796. Twenty 
years after, talking with Southey, I was surprised to find 
him still owning a secret bias in favor of Joan, founded on 

25 her detection of the dauphin. The story, for the benefit 
of the reader new to the case, was this : La Pucelle was 
first made known to the dauphin, and presented to his 
court, at Chinon ; and here came her first trial. By way 
of testing her supernatural pretensions, she was to find out 

30 the royal personage amongst the whole ark of clean and 
unclean creatures. Failing in this coup d'essai, she would 
not simply disappoint many a beating heart in the glitter- 
ing crowd that on different motives yearned for her success, 
but she would ruin herself, and, as the oracle within had 



JOAN OF ARC 373 

told her, would, by ruining herself, ruin France. Our own 
Sovereign Lady Victoria rehearses annually a trial not so 
severe in degree, but the same in kind. She '' pricks " for 
sheriffs. Joanna pricked for a king. But observe the dif- 
ference : our own Lady pricks for two men out of three ; 5 
Joanna for one man out of three hundred. Happy Lady 
of the Islands and the Orient ! — she ca7i go astray in her 
choice only by one-half : to the extent of one-half she must 
have the satisfaction of being right. And yet, even with 
these tight limits to the misery of a boundless discretion, 10 
permit me, Liege Lady, with all loyalty, to submit that 
now and then you prick with your pin the wrong man. 
But the poor child from Domremy, shrinking under the 
gaze of a dazzling court — not because dazzling (for in vis- 
ions she had seen those that were more so), but because 15 
some of them wore a scoffing smile on their features — 
how should she throw her line into so deep a river to angle 
for a king, where many a gay creature was sporting that 
masqueraded as kings in dress ! Nay, even more than any 
true king would have done : for, in Southey's version of 20 
the story, the dauphin says, by way of trying the virgin's 
magnetic sympathy with royalty, 

" On the throne, 
I the while mingling with the menial throng. 
Some courtier shall be seated." 25 

This usurper is even crowned : " the jeweled crown shines 
on a menial's head." But, really, that is '•'• im peu fort^' ; 
and the mob of spectators might raise a scruple whether 
our friend the jackdaw upon the throne, and the dauphin 
himself, were not grazing the shins of treason. For the dau- 30 
phin could not lend more than belonged to him. Accord- 
ing to the popular notion, he had no crown for himself; 
consequently none to lend, on any pretence whatever, until 



374 SELECTIONS FROM BE QUINCE Y 

the consecrated Maid should take him to Rheims. This 
was the popular notion in France. But certainly it was 
the dauphin's interest to support the popular notion, as he 
meant to use the services of Joanna. For if he were king 
5 already, what was it that she could do for him beyond 
Orle'ans ? That is to say, what more than a merely military 
service could she render him ? And, above all, if he were 
king without a coronation, and without the oil from the 
sacred ampulla, what advantage was yet open to him by 

10 celerity above his competitor, the English boy ? Now was 
to be a race for a coronation : he that should win that 
race carried the superstition of France along with him : he 
that should first be drawn from the ovens of Rheims was 
under that superstition baked into a king. 

15 La Pucelle, before she could be allowed to practise as a 
warrior, was put through her manual and platoon exercise, 
as a pupil in divinity, at the bar of six eminent men in 
wigs. According to Southey (v. 393, bk. iii., in the original 
edition of his "Joan of Arc,") she "appalled the doctors." 

20 It's not easy to do that: but they had some reason to feel 
bothered, as that surgeon would assuredly feel bothered 
who, upon proceeding to dissect a subject, should find the 
subject retaliating as a dissector upon himself, especially 
if Joanna ever made the speech to them which occupies 

25 V. 354-391, bk. iii. It is a double impossibility: ist, 
because a piracy from Tindal's " Christianity as old as the 
Creation " — a piracy a parte afite, and by three centuries ; 
2d, it is quite contrary to the evidence on Joanna's trial. 
Southey's "Joan" of a.d. 1796 (Cottle, Bristol) tells the 

30 doctors, among other secrets, that she never in her life 
attended — ist. Mass; nor 2d, the Sacramental Table; nor 
3d, Confession. In the meantime, all this deistical con- 
fession of Joanna's, besides being suicidal for the interest 
of her cause, is opposed to the depositions upon both trials. 



JOAN OF ARC 375 

The very best witness called from first to last deposes that 
Joanna attended these rites of her Church even too often ; 
was taxed with doing so ; and, by blushing, owned the 
charge as a fact, though certainly not as a fault. Joanna 
was a girl of natural piety, that saw God in forests and hills 5 
and fountains, but did not the less seek him in chapels and 
consecrated oratories. 

This peasant girl was self-educated through her own 
natural meditativeness. If the reader turns to that divine 
passage in " Paradise Regained " which Milton has put 10 
into the mouth of our Saviour when first entering the 
wilderness, and musing upon the tendency of those great 
impulses growing within himself 

" Oh, what a multitude of thoughts at once 
Awakened in me swarm, while I consider 15 

What from within I feel myself, and hear 
What from without comes often to my ears, 
111 sorting with my present state compared ! 
When I was yet a child, no childish play 
To me was pleasing ; all my mind was set 20 

Serious to learn and know, and thence to do. 
What might be public good ; myself I thought 
Born to that end " 

he will have some notion of the vast reveries which brooded 
over the heart of Joanna in early girlhood, when the wings 25 
were budding that should carry her from Orleans to Rheims ; 
when the golden chariot was dimly revealing itself that 
should carry her from the kingdom of France Delivered to 
the Eternal Kingdom. 

It is not requisite for the honour of Joanna, nor is there 30 
in this place room, to pursue her brief career of action. 
That, though wonderful, forms the earthly part of her 
story ; the spiritual part is the saintly passion of her 



376 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

imprisonment, trial, and execution. It is unfortunate, there- 
fore, for Southey's " Joan of Arc " (which, however, should 
always be regarded as a Juvenile effort), that precisely when 
her real glory begins the poem ends. But this limitation 
5 of the interest grew, no doubt, from the constraint insep- 
arably attached to the law of epic unity. Joanna's history 
bisects into two opposite hemispheres, and both could not 
have been presented to the eye in one poem, unless by sac- 
rificing all unity of theme, or else by involving the earlier 

10 half, as a narrative episode, in the latter ; which, however, 
might have been done, for it might have been communi- 
cated to a fellow prisoner, or a confessor, by Joanna herself. 
It is sufficient, as concerns this section of Joanna's life, to 
say that she fulfilled, to the height of her promises, the 

15 restoration of the prostrate throne. France had become 
a province of England, and for the ruin of both, if such a 
yoke could be maintained. Dreadful pecuniary exhaustion 
caused the English energy to droop ; and that critical 
opening La Pucelle used with a corresponding felicity of 

20 audacity and suddenness (that were in themselves porten- 
tous) for introducing the wedge of French native resources, 
for rekindling the national pride, and for planting the dau- 
phin once more upon his feet. When Joanna appeared, he 
had been on the point of giving up the struggle with the 

25 English, distressed as they were, and of flying to the 
south of France. She taught him to blush for such abject 
counsels. She liberated Orleans, that great city, so deci- 
sive by its fate for the issue of the war, and then beleaguered 
by the English with an elaborate application of engineer- 

30 ing skill unprecedented in Europe. Entering the city after 
sunset on the 29th of April, she sang mass on Sunday, May 
8th, for the entire disappearance of the besieging force. 
On the 29th of June she fought and gained over the English 
the decisive battle of Patay ; on the 9th of July she took 



JOAN OF ARC 377 

Troyes by a coup-de-mai?i from a mixed garrison of English 
and Burgundians ; on the 15th of that month she carried 
the dauphin into Rheims ; on Sunday the 17th she crowned 
him ; and there she rested from her labour of triumph. 
All that was to be do?ie she had now accomplished ; what 5 
remained was — to suffer. 

All this forward movement was her own ; excepting one 
man, the whole council was against her. Her enemies were 
all that drew power from earth. Her supporters were her 
own strong enthusiasm, and the headlong contagion by 10 
which she carried this sublime frenzy into the hearts 
of women, of soldiers, and of all who lived by labour. 
Henceforward she was thwarted ; and the worst error that 
she committed was to lend the sanction of her presence to 
counsels which she had ceased to approve. But she had 15 
now accomplished the capital objects which her own visions 
had dictated. These involved all the rest. Errors were 
now less important ; and doubtless it had now become 
more difficult for herself to pronounce authentically what 
were errors. The noble girl had achieved, as by a rapture 20 
of motion, the capital end of clearing out a free space 
around her sovereign, giving him the power to move his 
arms with effect, and, secondly, the inappreciable end of 
winning for that sovereign what seemed to all France the 
heavenly ratification of his rights, by crowning him with 25 
the ancient solemnities. She had made it impossible for 
the English now to step before her. They were caught 
in an irretrievable blunder, owing partly to discord among 
the uncles of Henry VI, partly to a want of funds, but 
partly to the very impossibility which they believed to 3° 
press with tenfold force upon any French attempt to fore- 
stall theirs. They laughed at such a thought ; and, while 
they laughed, she did it. Henceforth the single redress 
for the English of this capital oversight, but which never 



378 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

could have redressed it effectually, was to vitiate and taint 
the coronation of Charles VII as the work of a witch. 
That policy, and not malice (as M. Michelet is so happy 
to believe), was the moving principle in the subsequent 

5 prosecution of Joanna. Unless they unhinged the force of 
the first coronation in the popular mind by associating 
it with power given from hell, they felt that the sceptre of 
the invader was broken. 

But she, the child that, at nineteen, had wrought wonders 

10 so great for France, was she not elated ? Did she not lose, 
as men so often have lost, all sobriety of mind when stand- 
ing upon the pinnacle of success so giddy ? Let her 
enemies declare. During the progress of her movement, 
and in the centre of ferocious struggles, she had mani- 

15 fested the temper of her feelings by the pity which she 
had everywhere expressed for the suffering enemy. She 
forwarded to the English leaders a touching invitation 
to unite with the French, as brothers, in a common cru- 
sade against infidels — thus opening the road for a soldierly 

20 retreat. She interposed to protect the captive or the 
wounded ; she mourned over the excesses of her coun- 
trymen ; she threw herself off her horse to kneel by the 
dying English soldier, and to comfort him with such min- 
istrations, physical or spiritual, as his situation allowed. 

25 "Nolebat," says the evidence, "uti ense suo, aut quem- 
quam interficere." She sheltered the English that invoked 
her aid in her own quarters. She wept as she beheld, 
stretched on the field of battle, so many brave enemies 
that had died without confession. And, as regarded her- 

30 self, her elation expressed itself thus: on the day when she 
had finished her work, she wept ; for she knew that, when 
her triumphal task was done, her end must be approach- 
ing. Her aspirations pointed only to a place which seemed 
to her more than usually full of natural piety, as one in 



JOAN OF ARC 379 

which it would give her pleasure to die. And she uttered, 
between smiles and tears, as a wish that inexpressibly 
fascinated her heart, and yet was half fantastic, a broken 
prayer that God would return her to the solitudes from 
which he had drawn her, and suffer her to become a shep- 5 
herdess once more. It was a natural prayer, because 
nature has laid a necessity upon every human heart to 
seek for rest and to shrink from torment. Yet, again, 
it was a half-fantastic prayer, because, from childhood 
upward, visions that she had no power to mistrust, and the 10 
voices which sounded in her ear for ever, had long since 
persuaded her mind that for her no such prayer could be 
granted. Too well she felt that her mission must be 
worked out to the end, and that the end was now at hand. 
All went wrong from this time. She herself had created 15 
tYvQ funds out of which the French restoration should grow; 
but she was not suffered to witness their development or 
their prosperous application. More than one military plan 
was entered upon which she did not approve. But she 
still continued to expose her person as before. Severe 20 
wounds had not taught her caution. And at length, in a 
sortie from Compiegne (whether through treacherous col- 
lusion on the part of her own friends is doubtful to this 
day), she was made prisoner by the Burgundians, and 
finally surrendered to the English. 25 

Now came her trial. This trial, moving of course under 
English influence, was conducted in chief by the Bishop of 
Beauvais. He was a Frenchman, sold to English interests, 
and hoping, by favour of the English leaders, to reach the 
highest preferment. "Bishop that art. Archbishop that 30 
shalt be. Cardinal that mayest be," were the words that 
sounded continually in his ear ; and doubtless a whisper 
3f visions still higher, of a triple crown, and feet upon the 
necks of kings, sometimes stole into his heart. M. Michelet 



380 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCEY 

is anxious to keep us in mind that this bishop was but 
an agent of the English. True. But it does not better 
the case for his countryman that, being an accomplice 
in the crime, making himself the leader in the persecution 
5 against the helpless girl, he was willing to be all this in 
the spirit, and with the conscious vileness of a cat's-paw. 
Never from the foundations of the earth was there such a 
trial as this, if it were laid open in all its beauty of defence 
and all its hellishness of attack. Oh, child of France ! 

10 shepherdess, peasant girl! trodden under foot by all around 
thee, how I honour thy flashing intellect, quick as God's 
lightning, and true as God's lightning to its mark, that ran 
before France and laggard Europe by many a century, con- 
founding the malice of the ensnarer, and making dumb the 

15 oracles of falsehood ! Is it not scandalous, is it not humili- 
ating to civilization, that, even at this day, France exhibits 
the horrid spectacle of judges examining the prisoner against 
himself ; seducing him, by fraud, into treacherous conclu- 
sions against his own head ; using the terrors of their power 

20 for extorting confessions from the frailty of hope ; nay 
(which is worse), using the blandishments of condescension 
and snaky kindness for thawing into compliances of grati- 
tude those whom they had failed to freeze into terror } 
Wicked judges! barbarian jurisprudence ! — that, sitting in 

25 your own conceit on the summits of social wisdom, have 
yet failed to learn the first principles of criminal justice — 
sit ye humbly and with docility at the feet of this girl from 
Domremy, that tore your webs of cruelty into shreds and 
dust. " Would you examine me as a witness against 

30 myself ? " was the question by which many times she defied 
their arts. Continually she showed that their interrogations 
were irrelevant to any business before the court, or that 
entered into the ridiculous charges against her. General 
questions were proposed to her on points of casuistical 



JOAN OF ARC 381 

divinity ; two-edged questions, which not one of them- 
selves could have answered, without, on the one side, land- 
ing himself in heresy (as then interpreted), or, on the 
other, in some presumptuous expression of self-esteem. 
Next came a wretched Dominican, that pressed her with 5 
an objection, which, if applied to the Bible, would tax 
every one of its miracles with unsoundness. The monk 
had the excuse of never having read the Bible. M. Michelet 
has no such excuse ; and it makes one blush for him, as a 
philosopher, to find him describing such an argument as 10 
"weighty," whereas it is but a varied expression of rude 
Mahometan metaphysics. Her answer to this, if there 
were room to place the whole in a clear light, was as shat- 
tering as it was rapid. Another thought to entrap her by 
asking what language the angelic visitors of her solitude 15 
had talked — as though heavenly counsels could want 
polyglot interpreters for every word, or that God needed 
language at all in whispering thoughts to a human heart. 
Then came a worse devil, who asked her whether the Arch- 
angel Michael had appeared naked. Not comprehending 20 
the vile insinuation, Joanna, whose poverty suggested to her 
simplicity that it might be the costliness of suitable robes 
which caused the demur, asked them if they fancied God, 
who clothed the flowers of the valleys, unable to find 
raiment for his servants. The answer of Joanna moves a 25 
smile of tenderness, but the disappointment of her judges 
makes one laugh exultingly. Others succeeded by troops, 
who upbraided her with leaving her father ; as if that greater 
Father, whom she believed herself to have been serving, did 
not retain the power of dispensing with his own rules, or 30 
had not said that for a less cause than martyrdom man and 
woman should leave both father and mother. 

On Easter Sunday, when the trial had been long pro- 
ceeding, the poor girl fell so ill as to cause a belief that 



382 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

she had been poisoned. It was not poison. Nobody had 
any interest in hastening a death so certain. M. Michelet, 
whose sympathies with all feelings are so quick that one 
would gladly see them always as justly directed, reads the 

5 case most truly. Joanna had a twofold malady. She was 
visited by a paroxysm of the complaint called homesickness. 
The cruel nature of her imprisonment, and its length, could 
not but point her solitary thoughts, in darkness and in 
chains (for chained she was), to Domremy. And the 

10 season, which was the most heavenly period of the spring, 
added stings to this yearning. That was one of her mala- 
dies — nostalgia^ as medicine calls it ; the other was weari- 
ness and exhaustion from daily combats with malice. She 
saw that everybody hated her and thirsted for her blood ; 

15 nay, many kind-hearted creatures that would have pitied 
her profoundly, as regarded all political charges, had their 
natural feelings warped by the belief that she had dealings 
with fiendish powers. She knew she was to die ; that was 
7iot the misery ! the misery was that this consummation 

20 could not be reached without so much intermediate strife, 
as if she were contending for some chance (where chance 
was none) of happiness, or were dreaming for a moment 
of escaping the inevitable. Why, then, did she contend .? 
Knowing that she would reap nothing from answering her 

25 persecutors, why did she not retire by silence from the 
superfluous contest ? It was because her quick and eager 
loyalty to truth would not suffer her to see it darkened by 
frauds which she could expose, but others, even of candid 
listeners, perhaps, could not ; it was through that imperish- 

30 able grandeur of soul which taught her to submit meekly 
and without a struggle to her punishment, but taught her 
7iot to submit — no, not for a moment — to calumny as to 
facts, or to misconstruction as to motives. Besides, there 
were secretaries all around the court taking down her words. 



JOAN OF ARC 383 

That was meant for no good to Jicr. But the end does not 
always correspond to the meaning. And Joanna might say to 
herself, " These words that will be used against me to-morrow 
and the next day, perhaps, in some nobler generation, may 
rise again for my justification." Yes, Joanna, they are rising 5 
even now in Paris, and for more than justification ! 

Woman, sister, there are some things which you do not 
execute as well as your brother, man ; no, nor ever will. 
Pardon me if I doubt whether you will ever produce a 
great poet from your choirs, or a Mozart, or a Phidias, or 10 
a Michael Angelo, or a great philosopher, or a great scholar. 
By which last is meant — not one who depends simply on 
an infinite memory, but also on an infinite and electrical 
power of combination ; bringing together from the four 
winds, like the angel of the resurrection, what else were 15 
dust from dead men's bones, into the unity of breathing 
life. If you can create yourselves into any of these great 
creators, why have you not ? 

Yet, sister woman, though I cannot consent to find a 
Mozart or a Michael Angelo in your sex, cheerfully, and 20 
with the love that burns in depths of admiration, I acknowl- 
edge that you can do one thing as well as the best of us 
men — a greater thing than even Milton is known to have 
done, or Michael Angelo ; you can die grandly, and as 
goddesses would die, were goddesses mortal. If any dis- 25 
tant worlds (which may be the case) are so far ahead of us 
Tellurians in optical resources as to see distinctly through 
their telescopes all that we do on earth, what is the 
grandest sight to which we ever treat them ? St. Peter's 
at Rome, do you fancy, on Easter Sunday, or Luxor, or 30 
perhaps the Himalayas ? Oh, no ! my friend ; suggest some- 
thing better ; these are baubles to them ; they see in other 
worlds, in their own, far better toys of the same kind. 
These, take my word for it, are nothing. Do you give it 



384 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

up ? The finest thing, then, we have to show them is a 
scaffold on the morning of execution. I assure you there 
is a strong muster in those far telescopic worlds, on any 
such morning, of those who happen to find themselves 
5 occupying the right hemisphere for a peep at us. How, 
then, if it be announced in some such telescopic world by 
those who make a livelihood of catching glimpses at our 
newspapers, whose language they have long since deci- 
phered, that the poor victim in the morning's sacrifice is a 

10 woman ? How, if it be published in that distant world 
that the sufferer wears upon her head, in the eyes of many, 
the garlands of martyrdom ? How, if it should be some 
Marie Antoinette, the widowed queen, coming forward on 
the scaffold, and presenting to the morning air her head, 

15 turned gray by sorrow — daughter of Csesars kneeling down 
humbly to kiss the guillotine, as one that worships death ? 
How, if it were the noble Charlotte Corday, that in the 
bloom of youth, that with the loveliest of persons, that 
with homage waiting upon her smiles wherever she turned 

20 her face to scatter them — homage that followed those 
smiles as surely as the carols of birds, after showers in 
spring, follow the reappearing sun and the racing of sun- 
beams over the hills — yet thought all these things cheaper 
than the dust upon her sandals, in comparison of deliver- 

25 ance from hell for her dear suffering France ! Ah ! these 
were spectacles indeed for those sympathising people in 
distant worlds; and some, perhaps, would suffer a sort of 
martyrdom themselves, because they could not testify their 
wrath, could not bear witness to the strength of love and to 

30 the fury of hatred that burned within them at such scenes, 
could not gather into golden urns some of that glorious 
dust which rested in the catacombs of earth. 

On the Wednesday after Trinity Sunday in 1431, being 
then about nineteen years of age, the Maid of Arc under- 



JOAN OF ARC 385 

went her martyrdom. She was conducted before mid-day, 
guarded by eight hundred spearmen, to a platform of pro- 
digious height, constructed of wooden billets supported by 
occasional walls of lath and plaster, and traversed by hollow 
spaces in every direction for the creation of air currents. 5 
The pile " struck terror," says M. Michelet, " by its height " ; 
and, as usual, the English purpose in this is viewed as one 
of pure malignity. But there are two ways of explaining 
all that. It is probable that the purpose was merciful. 
On the circumstances of the execution I shall not linger. 10 
Yet, to mark the almost fatal felicity of M. Michelet in 
finding out whatever may injure the English name, at a 
moment when every reader will be interested in Joanna's 
personal appearance, it is really edifying to notice the inge- 
nuity by which he draws into light from a dark corner a 15 
very unjust account of it, and neglects, though lying upon 
the highroad, a very pleasing one. Both are from English 
pens. Grafton, a chronicler, but little read, being a stiff- 
necked John Bull, thought fit to say that no wonder Joanna 
should be a virgin, since her " foule face " was a satis- 20 
factory solution of that particular merit. Holinshead, on 
the other hand, a chronicler somewhat later, every way 
more important, and at one time universally read, has given 
a very pleasing testimony to the interesting character of 
Joanna's person and engaging manners. Neither of these 25 
men lived till the following century, so that personally this 
evidence is none at all. Grafton sullenly and carelessly 
believed as he wished to believe; Holinshead took pains 
to inquire, and reports undoubtedly the general impression 
of France. But I cite the case as illustrating M. Michelet's 30 
candour.^ 

1 Amongst the many ebullitions of M. Michelet's fury against us 
poor English are four which will be likely to amuse the reader ; and 
they are the more conspicuous in collision with the justice which he 



386 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE V 

The circumstantial incidents of the execution, unless 

with more space than I can now command, I should be 

unwilling to relate. I should fear to injure, by imperfect 

report, a martyrdom which to myself appears so unspeak- 

5 ably grand. Yet, for a purpose, pointing not at Joanna, 

sometimes does us, and the very indignant admiration which, under 
some aspects, he grants to us. 

1. Our English literature he admires with some gnashing of teeth. 
He pronounces it " fine and sombre," but, I lament to add, " skeptical, 
Judaic, Satanic — in a word, antichristian." That Lord Byron should 
figure as a member of this diabolical corporation will not surprise men. 
It will surprise them to hear that Milton is one of its Satanic leaders. 
Many are the generous and eloquent Frenchmen, besides Chateau- 
briand, who have, in the course of the last thirty years, nobly suspended 
their own burning nationality, in order to render a more rapturous 
homage at the feet of Milton ; and some of them have raised Milton 
almost to a level with angelic natures. Not one of them has thought 
of looking for him below the earth. As to Shakspere, M. Michelet 
detects in him a most extraordinary mare's nest. It is this : he does 
" not recollect to have seen the name of God " in any part of his 
works. On reading such words, it is natural to rub one's eyes, and sus- 
pect that all one has ever seen in this world may have been a pure 
ocular delusion. In particular, I begin myself to suspect that the 
word "la gloire'''' never occurs in any Parisian journal. "The great 
English nation," says M. Michelet, " has one immense profound vice " 
— to wit, "pride." Why, really, that may be true; but we have a 
neighbour not absolutely clear of an " immense profound vice," as like 
ours in colour and shape as cherry to cherry. In short, M. Michelet 
thinks us, by fits and starts, admirable — only that we are detestable ; 
and he would adore some of our authors, were it not that so intensely 
he could have wished to kick them. 

2. M. Michelet thinks to lodge an arrow in our sides by a very odd 
remark upon Thomas a Kempis : which is, that a man of any conceiv- 
able European blood — a Finlander, suppose, or a Zantiote — might 
have written Tom; only not an Englishman. Whether an Englishman 
could have forged Tom must remain a matter of doubt, unless the 
thing had been tried long ago. That problem was intercepted for ever 
by Tom's perverseness in choosing to manufacture himself. Yet, since 
nobody is better aware than M. Michelet that this very point of Kempis 



JOAN OF ARC 3S7 

but at M. Michelet — viz., to convince him that an English- 
man is capable of thinking more highly of La Pucelle than 
even her admiring countrymen — I shall, in parting, allude 
to one or two traits in Joanna's demeanour on the scaffold, 
and to one or two in that of the bystanders, which authorise 5 

having manufactured Kempis is furiously and hopelessly litigated, three 
or four nations claiming to have forged his work for him, the shocking 
old doubt will raise its snaky head once more — whether this forger, 
who rests in so much darkness, might not, after all, be of English 
blood. Tom, it may be feared, is known to modern English literature 
chiefly by an irreverent mention of his name in a line of Peter Pindar's 
(Dr. Wolcot) fifty years back, where he is described as 

" Kempis Tom, 
Who clearly shows the way to Kingdom Come." 

Few in these days can have read him, unless in the Methodist version of 
John Wesley. Among those few, however, happens to be myself; 
which arose from the accident of having, when a boy of eleven, received 
a copy of the " De Imitatione Christi " as a bequest from a relation 
who died very young ; from which cause, and from the external pretti- 
ness of the book — being a Glasgow reprint by the celebrated Foulis, 
and gaily bound — I was induced to look into it, and finally read it 
many times over, partly out of some sympathy which, even in those 
days, I had with its simplicity and devotional fervour, but much more 
from the savage delight I found in laughing at Tom's Latinity. Tkat, I 
freely grant to M. Michelet, is inimitable. Yet, after all, it is not cer- 
tain whether the original was Latin. But, however that may have 
been, if it is possible that M. Michelet* can be accurate in saying that 
there are no less than sixty French versions (not editions, observe, but 
separate versions) existing of the " De Imitatione," how prodigious 

* '^ 1/ M. Michelet can be accurate'''' : — However, on consideration, this statement 
does not depend on Michelet. The bibliographer Barbier has absolutely specified 
sixty in a separate dissertation, soixante traductions, among those even that have not 
escaped the search. The Italian translations are said to be thirty. As to mere 
editions, not counting the early MSS. for half a century before printing was introduced, 
those in Latin amount to 2000, and those in French to 1000. Meantime, it is very clear 
to me that this astonishing popularity, so entirely unparalleled in literature, could not 
have existed except in Roman Catholic times, nor subsequently have lingered in any 
Protestant land. It was the denial of Scripture fountains to thirsty lands which made 
this slender rill of Scripture truth so passionately welcome. 



388 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

me in questioning an opinion of his upon this martyr's firm- 
ness. The reader ought to be reminded that Joanna D'Arc 
was subjected to an unusually unfair trial of opinion. Any 
of the elder Christian martyrs had not much to fear oiper- 
5 sofial rancour. The martyr was chiefly regarded as the 

must have been the adaptation of the book to the religious heart of the 
fifteenth century ! Excepting the Bible, but excepting that only in 
Protestant lands, no book known to man has had the same distinction. 
It is the most marvellous bibliographical fact on record. 

3. Our English girls, it seems, are as faulty in one way as we English 
males in another. None of us men could have written the Opera Omnia 
of Mr. a Kempis ; neither could any of our girls have assumed male 
attire like La Pucelle. But why ? Because, says Michelet, English 
girls and German think so much of an indecorum. Well, that is a 
good fault, generally speaking. But M. Michelet ought to have remem- 
bered a fact in the martyrologies which justifies both parties — the 
French heroine for doing, and the general choir of English girls for 
not doing. A female saint, specially renowned in France, had, for a 
reason as weighty as Joanna's — viz., expressly to shield her modesty 
among men — worn a male military harness. That reason and that 
example authorised La Pucelle ; but our English girls, as a body, have 
seldom any such reason, and certainly no such saintly example, to 
plead. This excuses them. Yet, st^i, if it is indispensable to the 
national character that our young women should now and then tres- 
pass over the frontier of decorum, it then becomes a patriotic duty in 
me to assure M. Michelet that we have such ardent females among us, 
and in a long series ; some detected in naval hospitals when too sick to 
remember their disguise ; some on fields of battle ; multitudes never 
detected at all ; some only suspected ; and others discharged without 
noise by war offices and other absurd people. In our navy, both royal 
and commercial, and generally from deep remembrances of slighted 
love, women have sometimes served in disguise for many years, taking 
contentedly their daily allowance of burgoo, biscuit, or cannon-balls — 
anything, in short, digestible or indigestible, that it might please Provi- 
dence to send. One thing, at least, is to their credit: never any of 
these poor masks, with their deep silent remembrances, have been 
detected through murmuring, or what is nautically understood by 
" skulking." So, for once, M. Michelet has an erratum to enter upon 
the fly-leaf of his book in presentation copies. 



JOAN OF ARC 389 

enemy of Caesar ; at times, also, where any knowledge of 
the Christian faith and morals existed, with the enmity 
that arises spontaneously in the worldly against the spirit- 
ual. But the martyr, though disloyal, was not supposed 
to be therefore anti-national ; and still less was individually 
hateful. What was hated (if anything) belonged to his 
class, not to himself separately. Now, Joanna, if hated at 
all, was hated personally, and in Rouen on national grounds. 

4. But the last of these ebullitions is the most lively. We English, 
at Orleans, and after Orleans (which is not quite so extraordinary, if all 
were told), fled before the Maid of Arc. Yes, says M. Michelet, you 
did : deny it, if you can. Deny it, mon cher ? I don't mean to deny 
it. Running away, in many cases, is a thing so excellent that no phil- 
osopher would, at times, condescend to adopt any other step. All of 
us nations in Europe, without one exception, have shown our phil- 
osophy in that way at times. Even people '■'■ qui ne se 7'endent pas" 
have deigned both to run and to shout, " Sauve qui petit ! " at odd 
times of sunset ; though, for my part, I have no pleasure in recalling 
unpleasant remembrances to brave men ; and yet, really, being so phil- 
osophic, they ought Jiot to be unpleasant. But the amusing feature in 
M. Michelet's reproach is the way in which he improves and varies 
against us the charge of running, as if he were singing a catch. Listen 
to him : They " showed their backs," did these English. (Hip, hip, 
hurrah ! three times three!) ^'' Behind good walls they let themselves be 
taken." (Hip, hip ! nine times nine !) They " ran as fast as their legs 
c Old d carry them." (Hurrah ! twenty-seven times twenty-seven !) They 
^^ ran before a girl" ; they did. (Hurrah! eighty-one times eighty- 
one !) This reminds one of criminal indictments on the old model 
in English courts, where (for fear the prisoner should escape) the crown 
lawyer varied the charge perhaps through forty counts. The law laid 
its guns so as to rake the accused at every possible angle. While the 
indictment was reading, he seemed a monster of crime in his own 
eyes ; and yet, after all, the poor fellow had but committed one offence, 
and not always that. N. B. — Not having the French original at 
hand, I make my quotations from a friend's copy of Mr. Walter Kelly's 
translation ; which seems to me faithful, spirited, and idiomatically 
English — liable, in fact, only to the single reproach of occasional 
provincialisms. 



390 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

Hence there would be a certainty of calumny arising 
against her such as would not affect martyrs in general. 
That being the case, it would follow of necessity that some 
people would impute to her a willingness to recant. No 

5 innocence could escape that Now, had she really testified 
this willingness on the scaffold, it would have argued noth- 
ing at all but the weakness of a genial nature shrinking 
from the instant approach of torment. And those will 
often pity that weakness most who, in their own persons, 

10 would yield to it least. Meantime, there never was a 
calumny uttered that drew less support from the recorded 
circumstances. It rests upon no positive testimony, and 
it has a weight of contradicting testimony to stem. And 
yet, strange to say, M. Michelet, who at times seems to 

15 admire the Maid of Arc as much as I do, is the one sole 
writer among her friends who lends some countenance to 
this odious slander. His words are that, if she did not 
utter this word recant with her lips, she uttered it in her 
heart. " Whether she said the word is uncertain ; but I 

20 affirm that she thought it." 

Now, I affirm that she did not ; not in any sense of the 
word '''■thought'" applicable to the case. Here is France 
calumniating La Pucelle ; here is England defending her. 
M. Michelet can only mean that, on a priori principles, 

25 every woman must be presumed liable to such a weak- 
ness ; that Joanna was a woman ; ergo, that she was liable 
to such a weakness. That is, he only supposes her to 
have uttered the word by an argument which presumes it 
impossible for anybody to have done otherwise. I, on the 

30 contrary, throw the onus of the argument not on presum- 
able tendencies of nature, but on the known facts of that 
morning's execution, as recorded by multitudes. What 
else, I demand, than mere weight of metal, absolute nobil- 
ity of deportment, broke the vast line of battle then 



JOAN OF ARC 391 

arrayed against her ? What else but her meek, saintly 
demeanour won, from the enemies that till now had believed 
her a witch, tears of rapturous admiration ? " Ten thou- 
sand men," says M. Michelet himself — "ten thousand 
men wept " ; and of these ten thousand the majority were 5 
political enemies knitted together by cords of superstition. 
What else was it but her constancy, united with her angelic 
gentleness, that drove the fanatic English soldier — who 
had sworn to throw a fagot on her scaffold as his tribute 
of abhorrence, that did so, that fulfilled his vow — sud- 10 
denly to turn away a penitent for life, saying everywhere 
that he had seen a dove rising upon wings to heaven from 
the ashes where she had stood ? What else drove the exe- 
cutioner to kneel at every shrine for pardon to his share in 
the tragedy? And, if all this were insufficient, then I cite 15 
the closing act of her life as valid on her behalf, were 
all other testimonies against her. The executioner had 
been directed to apply his torch from below. He did 
so. The fiery smoke rose upward in billowing volumes. 
A Dominican monk was then standing almost at her side. 20 
Wrapped up in his sublime office, he saw not the danger, 
but still persisted in his prayers. Even then, when the 
last enemy was racing up the fiery stairs to seize her, even 
at that moment did this noblest of girls think only for him, 
the one friend that would not forsake her, and not for her- 25 
self ; bidding him with her last breath to care for his own 
preservation, but to leave her to God. That girl, whose 
latest breath ascended in this sublime expression of self- 
oblivion, did not utter the word recant either with her lips 
or in her heart. No ; she did not, though one should rise 30 
from the dead to swear it. 

Bishop of Beauvais ! thy victim died in fire upon a 
scaffold — thou upon a down bed. But, for the departing 



392 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

minutes of life, both are oftentimes alike. At the farewell 
crisis, when the gates of death are opening, and flesh is 
resting from its struggles, oftentimes the tortured and the 
torturer have the same truce from carnal torment ; both 
5 sink together into sleep ; together both sometimes kindle 
into dreams. When the mortal mists were gathering fast 
upon you two, bishop and shepherd girl — when the pavil- 
ions of life were closing up their shadowy curtains about 
you — let us try, through the gigantic glooms, to decipher 

lo the flying features of your separate visions. 

The shepherd girl that had delivered France — she, from 
her dungeon, she, from her baiting at the stake, she, from 
her duel with fire, as she entered her last dream — saw 
Domremy, saw the fountain of Domremy, saw the pomp of 

15 forests in which her childhood had wandered. That Easter 
festival which man had denied to her languishing heart — 
that resurrection of springtime, which the darkness of dun- 
geons had intercepted from her, hungering after the glorious 
liberty of forests — were by God given back into her hands 

20 as jewels that had been stolen from her by robbers. With 
those, perhaps (for the minutes of dreams can stretch into 
ages), was given back to her by God the bliss of childhood. 
By special privilege for her might be created, in this fare- 
well dream, a second childhood, innocent as the first ; but 

25 not, like that, sad with the gloom of a fearful mission in 
the rear. This mission had now been fulfilled. The storm 
was weathered ; the skirts even of that mighty storm were 
drawing off. The blood that she was to reckon for had 
been exacted ; the tears that she was to shed in secret had 

30 been paid to the last. The hatred to herself in all eyes 
had been faced steadily, had been suffered, had been sur- 
vived. And in her last fight upon the scaffold she had 
triumphed gloriously ; victoriously she had tasted the 
stings of death. For all, except this comfort from her 



JOAN OJ^-" ARC 393 

farewell dream, she had died — died amid the tears of ten 
thousand enemies — died amid the drums and trumpets of 
armies — died amid peals redoubling upon peals, volleys 
upon volleys, from the saluting clarions of martyrs. 

Bishop of Beauvais ! because the guilt-burdened man is 5 
in dreams haunted and waylaid by the most frightful of his 
crimes, and because upon that fluctuating mirror — rising 
(like the mocking mirrors of mirage in Arabian deserts) 
from the fens of death — most of all are reflected the sweet 
countenances which the man has laid in ruins ; therefore I 10 
know, bishop, that you also, entering your final dream, saw 
Domremy. That fountain, of which the witnesses spoke 
so much, showed itself to your eyes in pure morning dews ; 
but neither dews, nor the holy dawn, could cleanse away 
the bright spots of innocent blood upon its surface. By 15 
the fountain, bishop, you saw a woman seated, that hid 
her face. But, as you draw near, the woman raises her 
wasted features. Would Domremy know them again for 
the features of her child ? Ah, but you know them, bishop, 
well ! Oh, mercy ! what a groan was that which the ser- 20 
vants, waiting outside the bishop's dream at his bedside, 
heard from his labouring heart, as at this moment he turned 
away from the fountain and the woman, seeking rest in the 
forests afar off. Yet not so to escape the woman, whom 
once again he must behold before he dies. In the forests 25 
to which he prays for pity, will he find a respite ? What a 
tumult, what a gathering of feet is there ! In glades where 
only wild deer should run armies and nations are assem- 
bling ; towering in the fluctuating crowd are phantoms 
that belong to departed hours. There is the great English 30 
Prince, Regent of France. There is my Lord of Win- 
chester, the princely cardinal, that died and made no sign. 
There is the bishop of Beauvais, clinging to the shelter of 
thickets. What building is that which hands so rapid are 



394 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCEY 

raising ? Is it a martyr's scaffold ? Will they burn the 
child of Domremy a second time ? No ; it is a tribunal 
that rises to the clouds ; and two nations stand around it, 
waiting for a trial. Shall my Lord of Beauvais sit again 
5 upon the judgment-seat, and again number the hours for 
the innocent ? Ah, no ! he is the prisoner at the bar. 
Already all is waiting : the mighty audience is gathered, 
the Court is hurrying to their seats, the witnesses are 
arrayed, the trumpets are sounding, the judge is taking his 
10 place. Oh, but this is sudden ! My lord, have you no 
counsel ? " Counsel I have none ; in heaven above, or on 
earth beneath, counsellor there is none now that would take 
a brief from me : all are silent." Is it, indeed, come to this ? 
Alas ! the time is short, the tumult is wondrous, the crowd 
15 stretches away into infinity; but yet I will search in it for 
somebody to take your brief ; I know of somebody that will 
be your counsel. Who is this that cometh from Domre'my t 
Who is she in bloody coronation robes from Rheims ? Who 
is she that cometh with blackened flesh from walking the 
20 furnaces of Rouen ? This is she, the shepherd girl, coun- 
sellor that had none for herself, whom I choose, bishop, for 
yours. She it is, I engage, that shall take my lord's brief. 
She it is, bishop, that would plead for you ; yes, bishop, she 
— when heaven and earth are silent. 



ON THE KNOCKING AT THE GATE IN 
" MACBETH " 

From my boyish days I had always felt a great perplexity 
on one point in " Macbeth. " It was this : — the knocking at 
the gate which succeeds to the murder of Duncan produced 
to my feelings an effect for which I never could account. 
The effect was that it reflected back upon the murderer a 5 
peculiar awfulness and a depth of solemnity ; yet, however 
obstinately I endeavoured with my understanding to com- 
prehend this, for many years I never could see why it 
should produce such an effect. 

Here I pause for one moment to exhort the reader never 10 
to pay any attention to his understanding when it stands 
in opposition to any other faculty of his mind. The mere 
understanding, however useful and indispensable, is the 
meanest faculty in the human mind and the most to be 
distrusted; and yet the great majority of people trust to 15 
nothing else, — which may do for ordinary life, but not 
for philosophical purposes. Of this, out of ten thousand 
instances that I might produce, I will cite one. Ask of 
any person whatsoever who is not previously prepared for 
the demand by a knowledge of perspective, to draw in the 20 
rudest way the commonest appearance which depends upon 
the laws of that science — as, for instance, to represent the 
effect of two walls standing at right angles to each other, 
or the appearance of the houses on each side of a street, 
as seen by a person looking down the street from one 25 
extremity. Now, in all cases, unless the person has hap- 
pened to observe in pictures hov/ it is that artists produce 

395 



396 SELECTIONS FROM BE QUINCEY 

these effects, he will be utterly unable to make the smallest 
approximation to it. Yet why ? For he has actually seen 
the effect every day of his life. The reason is that he 
allows his understanding to overrule his eyes. His under- 
5 standing, which includes no intuitive knowledge of the laws 
of vision, can furnish him with no reason why a line which 
is known and can be proved to be a horizontal line should 
not appear 3. horizontal line : a line that made any angle 
with the perpendicular less than a right angle would seem 

10 to him to indicate that his houses were all tumbling down 
together. Accordingly he makes the line of his houses a 
horizontal line, and fails of course to produce the effect 
demanded. Here then is one instance out of many, in 
which not only the understanding is allowed to overrule 

15 the eyes, but where the understanding is positively allowed 
to obliterate the eyes, as it were ; for not only does the man 
believe the evidence of his understanding in opposition to 
that of his eyes, but (which is monstrous) the idiot is not 
aware that his eyes ever gave such evidence. He does not 

20 know that he has seen (and therefore quoad his conscious- 
ness has not seen) that which he has seen every day of his 
life. But to return from this digression, — my understand- 
ing could furnish no reason why the knocking at the gate 
in " Macbeth " should produce any effect, direct or reflected. 

25 In fact, my understanding said positively that it could 7iot 
produce any effect. But I knew better ; I felt that it did ; 
and I waited and clung to the problem until further knowl- 
edge should enable me to solve it. At length, in 18 12, Mr. 
Williams made his debut on the stage of Ratcliffe Highway, 

30 and executed those unparalleled murders which have pro- 
cured for him such a brilliant and undying reputation. On 
which murders, by the way, I must observe, that in one 
respect they have had an ill effect, by making the connois- 
seur in murder very fastidious in his taste, and dissatisfied 



KNOCKING AT THE GATE IN MACBETH 397 

with anything that has been since done in that line. All 
other murders look pale by the deep crimson of his ; and, 
as an amateur once said to me in a querulous tone, " There 
has been absolutely nothin'g doi7ig since his time, or nothing 
that's worth speaking of." But this is wrong, for it is 5 
unreasonable to expect all men to be great artists, and 
born with the genius of Mr. Williams. Now it will be 
remembered that in the first of these murders (that of the 
Marrs) the same incident (of a knocking at the door soon 
after the work of extermination was complete) did actually 10 
occur which the genius of Shakspere has invented ; and 
all good judges, and the most eminent dilettanti, acknowl- 
edged the felicity of Shakspere's suggestion as soon as it 
was actually realised. Here then was a fresh proof that I 
had been right in relying on my own feeling in opposition 15 
to my understanding ; and again I set myself to study the 
problem. At length I solved it to my own satisfaction ; 
and my solution is this : — Murder, in ordinary cases, where 
the sympathy is wholly directed to the case of the murdered 
person, is an incident of coarse and vulgar horror ; and for 20 
this reason — that it flings the interest exclusively upon the 
natural but ignoble instinct by which we cleave to life : an 
instinct which, as being indispensable to the primal law 
of self-preservation, is the same in kind (though different 
in degree) amongst all living creatures. This instinct, there- 25 
fore, because it annihilates all distinctions, and degrades 
the greatest of men to the level of " the poor beetle that 
we tread on," exhibits human nature in its most abject and 
humiliating attitude. Such an attitude would little suit the 
purposes of the poet. What then must he do ? He must 30 
throw the interest on the murderer. Our sympathy must be 
with hi77i (of course I mean a sympathy of comprehension, 
a sympathy by which we enter into his feelings, and are 
made to understand them — not a sympathy of pity or 



398 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

approbation).^ In the murdered person all strife of thought, 
all flux and reflux of passion and of purpose, are crushed 
by one overwhelming panic ; the fear of instant' death 
smites him " with its petrific mace." But in the murderer, 
5 such a murderer as a poet 'will condescend to, there must 
be raging some great storm of passion — jealousy, ambition, 
vengeance, hatred — which will create a hell within him; 
and into this hell we are to look. 

In " Macbeth," for the sake of gratifying his own enormous 

10 and teeming faculty of creation, Shakspere has introduced 
two murderers : and, as usual in his hands, they are remark- 
ably discriminated : but — though in Macbeth the strife 
of mind is greater than in his wife, the tiger spirit not so 
awake, and his feelings caught chiefly by contagion from 

15 her — yet, as both were finally involved in the guilt of 
murder, the murderous mind of necessity is finally to be 
presumed in both. This was to be expressed ; and on its 
own account, as well as to make it a more proportionable 
antagonist to the unoffending nature of their victim, ''the 

20 gracious Duncan," and adequately to expound "the deep 
damnation of his taking off," this was to be expressed with 
peculiar energy. We were to be made to feel that the 
human nature — i.e.^ the divine nature of love and mercy, 
spread through the hearts of all creatures, and seldom 

25 utterly withdrawn from man — was gone, vanished, extinct, 
and that the fiendish nature had taken its place. And, as 

1 It seems almost ludicrous to guard and explain my use of a word 
in a situation where it would naturally explain itself. But it has 
become necessary to do so, in consequence of the unscholar-like use of 
the word sympathy, at present so general, by which, instead of taking 
it in its proper sense, as the act of reproducing in our minds the 
feelings of another, whether for hatred, indignation, love, pity, or 
approbation, it is made a mere synonyme of the word pity ; and 
hence, instead of saying, " sympathy with another," many writers 
adopt the monstrous barbarism of " sympathy for another." 



KNOCKING AT THE GATE IN MACBETH 399 

this effect is marvellously accomplished in the dialogues and 
soliloquies themselves, so it is finally consummated by the 
expedient under consideration ; and it is to this that I now 
solicit the reader's attention. If the reader has ever wit- 
nessed a wife, daughter, or sister, in a fainting fit, he may 5 
chance to have observed that the most affecting moment 
in such a spectacle is that in which a sigh and a stirring 
announce the recommencement of suspended life. Or, if 
the reader has ever been present in a vast metropolis on 
the day when some great national idol was carried in 10 
funeral pomp to his grave, and, chancing to walk near 
the course through which it passed, has felt powerfully, in 
the silence and desertion of the streets and in the stagna- 
tion of ordinary business, the deep interest which at that 
moment was possessing the heart of man — if all at once 15 
he should hear the death-like stillness broken up by the 
sound of wheels rattling away from the scene, and making 
known that the transitory vision was dissolved, he will be 
aware that at no moment was his sense of the complete 
suspension and pause in ordinary human concerns so full 20 
and affecting as at that moment when the suspension 
ceases, and the goings-on of human life are suddenly 
resumed. All action in any direction is best expounded, 
measured, and made apprehensible, by reaction. Now 
apply this to the case in " Macbeth." Here, as I have said, 25 
the retiring of the human heart and the entrance of the 
fiendish heart was to be expressed and made sensible. 
Another world has stepped in ; and the murderers are 
taken out of the region of human things, human purposes, 
human desires. They are transfigured : Lady Macbeth 30 
is "unsexed"; Macbeth has forgot that he was born of 
woman ; both are conformed to the image of devils ; and 
the world of devils is suddenly revealed. But how shall 
this be conveyed and made palpable ? In order that a new 



I 



400 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

world may step in, this world must for a time disappear. 
The murderers, and the murder, must be insulated — cut 
off by an immeasurable gulf from the ordinary tide and 
succession of human affairs — locked up and sequestered 

5 in some deep recess ; we must be made sensible that the 
world of ordinary life is suddenly arrested — laid asleep 
— tranced — racked into a dread armistice ; time must be 
annihilated ; relation to things without abolished ; ^nd all 
must pass self-withdrawn into a deep syncope and sus- 

10 pension of earthly passion. Hence it is that, when the 
deed is done, when the work of darkness is perfect, then 
the world of darkness passes away like a pageantry in the 
clouds : the knocking at the gate is heard, and it makes 
known audibly that the reaction has commenced; the 

15 human has made its reflux upon the fiendish: the pulses 
of life are beginning to beat again ; and the re-establish- 
ment of the goings-on of the world in which we live first 
makes us profoundly sensible of the awful parenthesis 
that had suspended them. 

20 O mighty poet ! Thy works are not as those of other 
men, simply and merely great works of art, but are also 
like the phenomena of nature, like the sun and the sea, 
the stars and the flowers, like frost and snow, rain and 
dew, hail-storm and thunder, which are to be studied 

25 with entire submission of our own faculties, and in the 
perfect faith that in them there can be no too much or 
too little, nothing useless or inert, but that, the farther 
we press in our discoveries, the more we shall see proofs 
of design and self-supporting arrangement where the care- 

30 less eye had seen nothing but accident ! 



NOTES 



THE AFFLICTION OF CHILDHOOD 

This selection is mainly a reproduction, with considerable alterations, 
of portions of the Suspiria de Profu7idis articles in Blackwood for 1845 5 
but the last part of it is a revision of the beginning of the first auto- 
biographic sketch in Hogg^s Instructor and Harper''s Magazine for 
January, 1851. The title is taken from Blackwood. Several pages of 
prefatory matter are omitted ; our selection occupies pp. 32-49 in 
Vol. I of the Works, Masson's Ed., and pp. 32-51 in Vol. II of the 
Riverside Ed. 

1 16. My two eldest sisters. De Quincey appends to the first 
paragraph (omitted) of this chapter of his autobiography the following 
note: " As occasions arise in these Sketches, when, merely for the pur- 
poses of intelligibility, it becomes requisite to call into notice such 
personal distinctions in my family as otherwise might be unimportant, 
I here record the entire list of my brothers and sisters, according to 
their order of succession ; and Miltonically I include myself ; having 
surely as much logical right to count myself in the series of my own 
brothers as Milton could have to pronounce Adam the goodliest of 
his own sons. [C/. Paradise Lost, Book IV, lines 323-324: "Adam 
the goodliest man of men since born His sons."] First and last, we 
counted as eight children — viz., four brothers and four sisters, though 
never counting more than six living at once — viz., i. William, older 
than myself by more than five years ; 2. Elizabeth; 3. Jane, who died 
in her 4th year; 4. Mary ; 5. myself, certainly not the goodliest man 
of men since born my brothers ; 6. Richard, known to us all by the 
household name of Pifik, who in his after years tilted up and down 
what might then be called his Britannic Majesty's Oceans {viz., the 
Atlantic and Pacific) in the quality of midshipman, until Waterloo in 
one day put an extinguisher on that whole generation of midshipmen, 
by extinguishing all further call for their services ; 7. a second Jane ; 
8. Henry, a posthumous child, who belonged to Brasenose College, 
Oxford, and died about his 26th year." But cf. next following note. 

401 



402 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

2 2. She was three and a half, I one and a half. "The same grave- 
stone, in vSt. Anne's Churchyard, Manchester, which recorded the date 
of the death of De Quincey's father in 1793, recorded the dates of the 
deaths of the two sisters. The words are : ' Also of Jane Quincey, 
daughter of Thomas and Elizabeth Quincey, born September 18, 1786, 
died March 1790. Also of Elizabeth Quincey, their daughter, who 
died June 2, 1792, aged 9 years.' If this is correct, De Quincey, 
though right in giving the age of his sister Jane, at the time of her 
death, as three and a half years, seems to be wrong in making her older 
than himself. She was younger than himself by a whole year, — he 
being in the fifth year of his age when she died. His memory here 
seems to have reversed their relations of age." — Masson. Apart 
from the fact- that De Quincey makes such mistakes as this elsewhere, 
there can be little doubt that he has made an error here. De Quincey 
was nearly seven when his sister Elizabeth died at the age of nine ; his 
sister Mary, who survived till 182 1, was undoubtedly between Elizabeth 
and Thomas in age ; this makes it, without the testimony of the grave- 
stone, likely that Jane was a younger sister, and that her death occurred 
when De Quincey was four and a half years old. This conclusion 
adds greatly to the credibility of the narrative as a recollection of 
childhood. 

3 4. I had passed . . . my childhood ... in a rural seclusion. " De 
Quincey was born in Manchester on the 15th of August 1785, and 
was baptized on the 23d of September, as appears from the Register of 
Baptisms in St. Anne's Church of that city. ' September 23, Thomas, 
son of Thomas and Elizabeth Quincey,' is the record, showing that his 
surname in his infancy, and for an indefinite period afterwards, was 
simply Quincey. Though he was born, as he here distinctly tells us, /;/ 
Manchester (particular street now unknown, though there have been 
attempts to identify it, and even the particular house in it), the fact, 
also distinctly mentioned here, that he spent all his infancy, after the 
first few weeks, in ' a rural seclusion ' has to be borne in mind. Till 
1791 the family residence was a rustic cottage, called The Farm, some 
little way out of Manchester ; after which it was Greenhay, a mansion or 
villa which his father had built about a mile out of Manchester, in what 
was then a rural suburb, though it has long been absorbed into the 
great town, and now forms a district of the town itself, called com- 
monly Greenheys, derived by extension of the name apparently from 
its original application to one notable mansion. Biographers of 
De Quincey have till lately been strangely unanimous in the blunder 
of making him born at Greenhay, — a blunder from which even his 



NOTES 403 

tombstone in St. Cuthbert's Churchyard, Edinburgh, is not free. 'Born 
at Greenhay, near Manchester,' is part of the inscription." — Masson. 

5 14. " Love, the holy sense," etc. This is an earlier version of 
the lines in Wordsworth's Tribute to the Memory of the Same Dog : 

" For love, that comes wherever life and sense 
Are given by God, in thee was most intense." 

5 27. As near to nine years as I to six. For six De Quincey 
should have written seven. See note 2 2. Lte Quincey's tendency 
throughout seems to be to exaggerate his youth at the time of these 
occurrences. 

7 25. Why death ... is more profoundly affecting in summer. In 
the Pains of Opium, below, p. 247, De Quincey gives three reasons for 
this, of which that mentioned here is the last. 

8 16. Constitutionally touched with pensiveness. An expres- 
sion of great importance in De Quincey's biography. Cf Introduc- 
tion, p. xvii; also p. 213. 

9 18. Such a pretension had once been made for Jerusalem, and 
once for a Grecian city. As to Jerusalem, cf. Ezekiel, v, 5. In the 
Church of the Holy Sepulchre, in the Catholicon or main Chapel of the 
Greeks, the exact centre of the world is still indicated by a rounded 
stone, covered with netting and lifted from the floor on a low stand. 
(See Wallace's y6T//j-^7/^/// the Holy.) Delphi, or rather the round stone 
on which the Pythian Apollo sat in the adytum of the Delphic temple, 
was called ofxcpaXos, as marking the middle point of the earth, first in 
Pindar, Pythian Odes, IV, 74 (131); VI, 3; in ^-Eschylus, Etimenides, 
40, 160, etc. 

12 4. Frost gathering frost, some Sarsar wind of death. The 
word Sarsar is Arabic and is thus defined by Freytag, Lexicon Arabico- 
Latimun : " A cold, or, as others have it, a loudly-sounding wind." It 
also means (i) " extreme cold," and (2) "aloud noise." The present 
context of itself fixes the meaning here as " a cold wind." The word 
is found in no English dictionary, however, and some explanation is 
necessary of De Quincey's use of an Arabic term without the apology 
of italics, — the more since in a passage of the Confessions (p. 223), 
reprinted without change in 1856, he declares his utter ignorance of all 
Oriental tongues. The whole phrase, it appears, is a quotation from a 
contemporary. Southey, Thaiaba, Book I, in a note on line 36, quotes 
Lamai, and says of a building, "the foundation is not good nor the 
walls sufficiently strong, so that Azrael can enter on every side and the 
Sarsar can easily pass through " ; and this the poet works into the verse. 



404 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

In line 44, however, occurs the undoubted original of De Quincey's 
whole phrase : 

" The Sarsar from its womb went forth, 
The Icey wind of death ! " 

I owe these references to Southey to the kindness of Prof. W. C. 
Thayer, of Lehigh University. 

12 31. Thy doom of endless sorrow. There are several different 
legends of the "Wandering Jew." According to that which De Quincey 
adopts, he was a cobbler who refused Christ permission to rest at his 
house when our Lord was on his way to Calvary. The " words of 
Christ " were : " Thou shalt wander on the earth till I return." Since 
then the " everlasting Jew " has toiled from land to land, longing for the 
grave that is nowhere ready for him. The story has repeatedly been 
used in art and literature, notably in two novels of this century, — George 
Croly's Salathiel (1827) and Eugene Sue's Le Juif Errant (1844-45). 

13 2. The worm that could not die. The last verse of Isaiah reads : 
"And they shall go forth, and look upon the carcases of the men that 
have transgressed against me : for their worm shall not die, neither shall 
their fire be quenched ; and they shall be an abhorring unto all flesh." 
Cf. Mark, ix, 44, 46, 48; also Milton, Paradise Lost, Book VI, line 739. 
This phrase seems to have taken hold of De Quincey's imagination; he 
uses it repeatedly. 

15 34. A girl . . . had opened to my thirst fountains of pure celes- 
tial love. This passage, also, is of biographical interest, showing what 
elsewhere is attested, that De Quincey's mother did not occupy the 
place in his young life that naturally fell to her. 

16 19. The awful stillness, etc. In Notes for Suspiria {cf. follow- 
ing note) De Quincey refers to Wordsworth's Hartleap Well and The 
Danish Boy as expressing this feeling. 

18 31. God speaks to children, etc. This famous passage is the 
fitting culmination of the striking description of De Quincey's visions 
in the church. If we are to believe this account to be a pure recollec- 
tion uninfluenced by subsequent experiences, then it is of course con- 
clusive proof of De Quincey's claim — which, after all, except for the 
magnificence of his visions, is not remarkable — that his power to see 
visions and dream dreams antedated his acquaintance with opium. In 
the Suspiria recovered by Dr. Japp and reprinted by him in De Quincey's 
Posthumous Works, Vol. I, there is, pp. 13-15, a brief treatment of The 
Solitude of Childhood : "As nothing which is impassioned escapes the 
eye of poetry, neither has this escaped it — that there is, or may be. 



NOTES 



405 



through solitude, ' sublime attractions of the grave.' But even poetry 
has not perceived that these attractions may arise for a child. Not 
indeed a passion for the grave as the grave — from that a child revolts ; 
but a passion for the grave as the portal through which it may recover 
some heavenly countenance, mother or sister, that has vanished," etc. 
In the same piece he speaks of •' the breathless, mysterious. Pan-like 
silence that haunts the noon-day ... If this dead silence haunted the 
air, then the peace which was in nature echoed another peace which lay 
in graves, and I fell into a sick languishing for things which a voice 
from heaven seemed to say 'cannot be granted.'" {Cf. below, p. 16, 
lines 19 et seq) In the Notes for Suspiria, printed by Dr. Japp, 
pp. 27-28, there seem to be suggestions for the present passage. 
" God takes care for the religion of little children wheresoever His 
Christianity exists," the note begins ; and then further on : " Even by 
solitude does God speak to little children, when made vocal by the ser- 
vices of Christianity, as also he does by darkness wheresoever it is 
peopled with visions of his almighty power." See also the first note 
on the Siispiria, below, pp. 470-473. 

19 1. "Communion undisturbed." Cf. Wordsworth's Excursion, 
Book IV, near the beginning : 

" Thou, who didst wrap the cloud 
Of infancy around us, that thyself, 
Therein, with our simplicity awhile 
Might'st hold, on earth, communion undisturbed." 

19 24. Solitude ... is the Agrippa's mirror of the unseen uni- 
verse. Cornelius Heinrich Agrippa von Nettesheim, born i486, died 
1535, was a nobleman, philosopher, and student of alchemy and magic. 
He produced among other works a treatise Concerning Occult Philosophy. 
He became doctor of divinity, law, and medicine ; and later historiog- 
rapher to the Emperor Charles V, at whose court he resided for some 
time. A very good account of his fame and alleged marvellous deeds 
is given by Nash in The Unfortunate Traveller, or The Life of fack 
Wilton (1594). Wilton, journeying towards Italy with his master, the 
Earl of Surrey (the poet), found at Wittenberg "that abundant scholler 
Cornelius Agrippa,^'' who at that time " bare the fame to be the greatest 
coniurer in Christendome." Having seen some instances of his skill, 
they accompanied him on his return to the Emperor's court. There 
" some courtiers to wearie out time woulde tell vs further tales of Cor- 
nelitcs Agrippa, and how when sir Thofnas Moore our countrieman was 
there, hee shewed him the whole destruction of Troy in a dreame. 



4o6 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE V 

How the Lorde Cromwell being the kings Embassadour there, in lyke 
case, in a perspectiue glasse he set before his eyes, King Henrie the 
eight with all his Lordes hunting in his forrest at Windsore. ... To 
Charles the fifte then Emperour, they reported how he shewed the nine 
worthies, Dauid, Salomon, Gedeon, and the rest, in that similitude and 
lykenesse that they liued vpon earth. My master and I hauing by the 
high waie side gotten some reasonable familiarities with him, vpon this 
accesse of myracles imputed to him, resolued to request him something 
in our owne behalfes. I because I was his suborned Lorde and master 
[master and man had changed places for the nonce], desired him to see 
the liuely image of Geraldine his loue in the glasse, and what at that 
instant she did, and with whom shee was talking. Hee shewed her vs 
without more adoe, sicke weeping on her bedde, and resolued all into 
deuoute religion for the absence of her Lorde." — Nash's Unfortunate 
Traveller, ed. E. Gosse, London, 1892, pp. 86-90. For similar exhi- 
bitions of magic power, see the account of the exploits of Dr. Faustus 
before the great Emperor; Faust Volksbuch, 1587. 



INTRODUCTION TO THE WORLD OF STRIFE 

A recast, with abridgments and alterations, of the matter of a series 
of articles in Hogg's Instructor for 18 51 and 1852, all under the title of 
"A Sketch from Childhood" (Masson). A portion of these articles 
appeared also in Harper'' s Magazine, January and February, 1851. 
This selection, which is practically a continuation of that preceding it, 
is found in Works, Masson's Ed., Vol. I, pp. 55-114; Riverside Ed., 
Vol. II, pp. 58-130. 

21 2. My sixth year. Seventh. Cf. note 2 2. 

21 17. ''Self-withdrawn into a wondrous depth." From Words- 
worth's Excursion, Book II, near the end ; for wondrous read boundless. 
Cf. pp. 242-243 and note 242 28. 

22 15. I have rendered solemn thanks. See Riverside Ed., Vol. II, 
p. 32; Masson's Ed., Vol. I, p. 32. 

22 17. One such brother. William Quincey. See note 1 16. 

23 7. Greenhay. See note 3 4. 

24 30. The closing hour of his life. Though De Quincey speaks 
of his father (concerning whom see Introduction, p. xvi) as having died 
"in his thirty-ninth year," the inscription on his tombstone in the church- 
yard of St. Anne's, Manchester, reads : " Thomas Quincey, merchant, 
who died July 18, 1793, ^g^^ 4° years." 



NOTES 407 

25 5. Riding in whirlwinds. Cf. Addison's Campaign. After 
describing Marlborough's calm direction of the Battle of Blenheim the 
poet (lines 287-292) uses this comparison : 

" So when an angel hy divine command 
With rising tempests shakes a guilty land, 
Such as of late o'er pale Britannia past, 
Calm and serene he drives the furious blast ; 
And pleas'd the Almighty's orders to perform, 
Rides in the whirlwind, and directs the storm." 

25 6. Cloud-compelling Jove. See Iliad, I, 511 ; Odyssey, I, 63. 

25 8. Grammar School of Louth. The school at which, some twenty 
years later, Tennyson suffered for four years, under a " tempestuous, 
flogging master of the old stamp." " How I did hate that school ! " he 
said later in life. "The only good I ever got from it was the memory 
of the words, * sonus desilientis aquae,' and of an old wall covered with 
wild weeds opposite the school windows." — Alfred Lord Tennyson. 
A Memoir by his So9i, Vol. I, p. 7. 

25 13. Public schools. The great preparatory schools in England 
are so called, in distinction from the private schools, which are collec- 
tions of a few pupils under the roof of a master who superintends their 
education. Cowper's Tirocinium (tirocinium, "first military service," 
from tiro, a "recruit"), or A Review of Schools (dated Nov. 6, 1784), 
was a long poem " recommending Private Tuition in preference to an 
Education at School." It is worth noting here that Professor Benham 
asserts that Cowper's life at Westminster School (one of the great 
public schools, founded by Henry VHI in Westminster Abbey) seems 
to have been a very happy one. Cf Cowper's Works (ed. Benham), 
p. xxiv. 

26 2. His age the double of mine. If De Quincey refers to the 
time of Elizabeth's death (June, 1792), as seems probable, this state- 
ment is unusually accurate. 

26 13. Cases . . . cited from comedy, of such a yearning after 
contempt, . . . tool of religious hypocrisy. Professor Winchester 
suggests as a famous example — though not from comedy — Swift's 
Tale of a Tub, sec. 11. 

26 18. Latentis semita vitae. Horace, Epistles, I, 18, 103, has 
fallentis semita vitae, which is probably the passage in De Quincey's 
mind, though no variant latentis has been found. That word has like 
associations, however, elsewhere ; as Ovid, Tristia, III, 4, 25: " Crede 
mihi, bene qui latuit, bene vixit." 



4o8 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

29 6. Departed to the bosom of Cinderella. That is, burned to 
ashes. Cinderella (French Cendrillon) is the " ash-maiden." Perhaps 
a parody on "going to Abraham's bosom." Cf. Luke, xvi, 22. 

29 12. Solomon's signet-ring. Solomon, no doubt because of the 
tales of his remarkable wisdom, became in time by repute a great magi- 
cian. In particular the Arabians and afterward western nations told 
of the ring wdth which Solomon accomplished marvels in the suppression 
of wicked genii. 

30 16. A British surgeon. I have expended much effort fruitlessly 
in endeavoring to locate this surgeon and his octavos. Who is he.'' 

31 14. My sister Mary. This sister (see note 2 2) was married in 
181 9 to the Rev. Philip Serle, and died early in 182 1, just before the 
appearance of her brother as author. 

33 12. The philosopher in "Rasselas." In the beginning of Dr. 
Johnson's novel Rasselas (1759), the Prince of Abyssinia seeks to 
escape from the Happy Valley, in which he is confined in the midst of 
luxury. In Chap. VI one of the (mechanical) artists offers to teach 
the Prince to fly out of the Valley. " In a year the wings were finished ; 
and, on a morning appointed, the maker appeared furnished for flight 
on a little promontory : he waved his pinions awhile to gather air, then 
leaped from his stand, and in an instant dropped into the lake." 

33 14. " Revocare gradum," etc. From Virgil, ALneid, VI, 1 28-1 29. 
Here again De Quincey seems to misquote; "hoc opus, hie labor est" 
is the only reading. 

"iZ 18. Bishop Wilkins (1614-72), Master of Trinity College, Cam- 
bridge, as well as Bishop of Chester, published, when he was but twenty- 
four years old, his The Discovery of a New World ; or, a Discourse 
tending to prove that it is probable there ?nay be another habitable World 
in the Moon ' with a Discourse concerning the possibility of a passage 
thither. His writings are said to have aided greatly in spreading in 
England a belief in the Copernican system. 

The Adventures of Peter Wilkins (1751), by Robert Paltock, brings 
a supernatural element into the Robinson Crusoe type of novel. The 
hero is brought among a race of human beings provided with wings, 
but otherwise not greatly differing from good English folk. The book 
was a favorite, alongside of Defoe's great w^ork, with boys a hundred 
years ago. Cf. Raleigh's English Novel, p. 219. 

34 5. My next younger brother. Richard Quincey, known in the 
household as "Pink," and "younger by about four years" than the 
writer. De Quincey writes of him as "My Brother." (See Riverside 
Ed., Vol. II, p. 332; Masson's Ed., Vol. I, p. 2S7.) He ran away from 



NOTES 



409 



excessive flogging at school, went to sea, returned after a time, departed 
again, and finally died at the age of twenty-five, probably while on 
a hunting expedition in the Blue Mountains of Jamaica. But cf. 
De Quincey's footnote to the following paragraph. 

34 27. " Round-robin." Cf. in Boswell's Life, Temple Ed., Vol. IV, 
p. 88, the round-robin addressed to Johnson concerning his epitaph on 
Goldsmith, 

34 29. Burke's phrase of " the swinish multitude." In the 
French Revolution {Select Works, ed. Payne, Vol. II, p. 93) : '< Along 
with its natural protectors and guardians, learning will be cast into the 
mire, and trodden down under the hoofs of a swinish multitude." It 
seems that Burke was actually accused by his political opponents, on 
account of this phrase, of having said that the common people were 
no better than swine. 

35 12. "Sultan Selim" . . . ''Sultan Amurath." Selim III 
was Sultan of Turkey at this time. In 1792 he concluded peace with 
Austria and Russia, with which states he had been at war since his 
accession in 1789. The first Sultan Selim (1512-20) annexed Syria, 
Palestine, and Egypt to his dominions. Amurath I (1359-89) was the 
first of the Ottoman sultans to make conquests in Europe. 

36 6. Deucalion and Pyrrha. Deucalion, a king of Phthia in 
Thessaly, and his wife Pyrrha having been saved from a general deluge 
renewed the race by throwing stones behind them, which became men 
and women according to the sex of the thrower. Cf Ovid, Metamor- 
phoses, I, 244 et seq. For a study of Flood Traditions, see Worcester, 
Genesis in the Light of Modern Kfiowledge, New York, 1901 , pp. 360 et seq. 

36 )3. An iron age. Cf Ovid, Metamorphoses, I, 89-150, where the 
four ages of man, golden, silver, brazen, and iron, are described. Hesiod, 
Works and Days, 109 et seq., gives the same scheme with a heroic age, 
that of the Trojan War, interposed between the ages of brass and iron. 

37 8. Hot walls. Walls enclosing hot-air flues, used to keep trees, 
etc., warm. 

37 20. The Rev. S. H. See note 85 24 and p. 160, line 9, and note. 

38 16. Hessian boots. Long boots, which first appeared as a part 
of the uniform of Hessian troops. 

38 21. Sansculottes . . . Jacobins. The 6'a«j'<:z//c//^j (lit. " without 
breeches," i.e., wearing trousers instead of the aristocratic knee-breeches) 
of the French Revolution were the violent Republicans of the Paris 
mob. The Jacobins, the extreme party in republican France to which 
the Sansculottes attached themselves, took their names from the revo- 
lutionary Jacobin Society, organized in 1789, which in turn had been 



4IO SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

named from its meeting place, an ancient convent of monks of 
St. Jacques, i.e., Dominicans. The cries which De Quincey here men- 
tions expressed the Tory or conservative sentiment in opposition to the 
sympathy felt by many Englishmen (often called Jacobins) for the 
French Revolution. 

39 3. Tyrocinium. Cf. note 25 13. 

39 6. " Bucks " . . . " dandies." In the eighteenth century, accord- 
ing to the New English Dictionary, buck " indicated rather the assump- 
tion of ' spirit ' or gaiety of conduct than elegance of dress ; the latter 
notion comes forward early in the present century." Dandy was "in 
use on the Scottish Border in the end of the eighteenth century ; and 
about 1813-19 in vogue in London, for the 'exquisite' or 'swell' of the 
period." The origin of the word is still unknown ; Jack-a-dandy is per- 
haps the full form, and it is worth notice that in Scotland, where the 
term arose. Dandy is a nickname for Andrew. 

43 15. Dagon . . . Moloch. Dagon is mentioned in the Old Testa- 
ment as the national god of the Philistines. See Judges, xvi, 23, and 
I Samuel, v. Moloch is referred to in i Kings, xi, 7. Human sacrifices 
were offered to him. 

43 29. The Bridge of Sighs in Venice connects the ducal palace 
with the prisons ; through its tw^o enclosed passages prisoners were led 
for trial or judgment. 

44, footnote. Jus postliminii is " the right of return behind one's 
threshold" {post-li7fien), hence " the right of recovery, reprisal." 

46 12. The 5th of November. Guy Fawkes Day, when the dis- 
covery of the Gunpowder Plot, by which Fawkes and his accomplices 
would have blown up the Parliament on Nov. 5, 1605, is celebrated 
after the fashion of an American Fourth of July. 

46 23. Some natural growls, etc. This parodies Milton, Paradise 
Lost, Book XII, line 645 : 

" Some natural tears they dropp'd, but \vip"d them soon.'' 

46 25. "Of the sweeping whirlpool's sway," etc. The lines in 
Gray's Bard read : 

" Youth on the prow, and Pleasure at the helm ; 
Regardless of the sweeping Whirlwind's sway, 
That, hush'd in grim repose, expects his evening-prey." 

47 26. Preternaturally keen for flaws of language, etc. Here, as 
often, De Quincey makes his niceness in the choice of words the evi- 
dence of a care for accuracy of statement with which no candid reader 
can accredit him. Cf. following note. 



NOTES 



411 



48 24. Von Troll's famous chapter on the snakes of Lapland. 
There is great confusion in this reference. In the first place, Lapland is 
an error for Iceland. Cf. p. 285, and footnote, written some years before 
the present passage. The Letters on Iceland (Pinkerton's Voyages and 
Travels^ Vol. I, p. 621), containing observations . . . ?nade during a voy- 
age undertaken in the year ijjs, by Uno Von Troil, D.D., of Stockholm, 
contains no chapter of the kind. Such a chapter had appeared, how- 
ever, in N. Horrebow's (Danish, 1758) Natural History of Iceland : 
" Chap. LXXII. Concerning snakes. No snakes of any kind are to be 
met with throughout the whole island." In ^o?>vie[Vs Johnson., Vol. IV, 
p. 314, Temple Ed., there is a much more correct allusion, which 
may have been in De Quincey's mind : " Langton said very well to me 
afterwards, that he could repeat Johnson's conversation before dinner, 
as Johnson had said that he could repeat a complete chapter of 
The Natural History of Iceland, from the Danish of Horrebow, 
the whole of which was exactly thus : ' Chap. LXXII. Concerning 
Snakes. There are no snakes to be met with throughout the whole 
island.' " 

49 5. I was promoted to the rank of major-general. Page (Japp) 
prints from De Quincey's papers, in the Life, Vol. I, p. 30, a dialogue 
between the "reverend guardian" (Samuel Hall) and the major-general 
when under arrest. 

51 17. I make a wilderness, etc. The speech of Calgacus to the 
Caledonians, Tacitus, Agricola, 30, uses concerning the Romans this 
famous phrase : " Atque ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant." 

54 22. Sir Ywain was one of the knights of Arthur's court, who 
was the subject of a romance by Chretien de Troyes {Chevalier au 
Lyon), afterwards reproduced in an English metrical romance, Ywaine 
and Gawin, which De Quincey read, no doubt, in Joseph Ritson's 
Ancient Engleish Metrical Romancees, London, 1802. There lines 869- 
878 (Vol. I, p. 37) are : 

" Now lat we the lady be, 
And of sir Ywaine speke we. 
Luf that es so mekil of mayne, 
Sar had wownded sir Ywayne, 
That whareso he sal ride or ga 
His hert sho has that es his fa, 
His hert he has set albydene 
Whar him self dar noght be sene ; 
Bot thus in langing bides he, 
And hopes that it sal better be." 



412 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

54 28. To walk penitentially through the Furcae Caudinae. 
Furcae Caudinae is found in Lucan, Pharsalia, II, 138; Livy uses the 
diminutive Furculae Caudinae. Furca denotes literally a two-pronged 
fork, and the two passes in the mountains near Caudium were thought 
to resemble such a fork. Here the Romans were entrapped and 
defeated by the Samnites in 321 B.C. Cf. Mommsen, History of 
Rome, Vol. I, p. 471 (new ed.). 

54 33. " Delenda est Carthago ! " " Carthage must be destroyed !" 
Delenda est Karthago is the version of Florus (II, 15) of the words used 
by Cato the Censor, just before the Third Punic War, whenever he was 
called upon to record his vote in the Senate on any subject under 
discussion. 

55 17. Bulletin. The word bulletino, bolletine, from the Italian, had 
been in use during the seventeenth century, but the earliest instances 
given by Murray of bulletin (from the French) are: (i) 1765, H. Wal- 
pole's Correspondence, where it means a statement as to health ; and (2) 
1791, Burke's Appeal from the New to the Old Whigs, where it appears 
in De Quincey's sense. 

56 7. My savage, Orson-like sincerity. Valentine and Orson is 
one of the romances clustering about the Emperor Charlemagne, as the 
mediaeval romancers knew him. The two were twins, born in a forest. 
Orson was carried off by a bear and became rough and uncouth, while 
Valentine was brought up as a courtier. 

57 19. Order of the Bath. This Order is supposed to have been 
founded by Henry IV in 1399. The candidates were put into a bath 
the evening before their reception into the Order, to symbolize their 
purification from all stain. The present Order, however, was instituted 
by George I in 1725 and has been considerably extended since. 

58 3. Styan. De Quincey's use of this archaic form of sty or stye, 
when it must have been long obsolete in literary English, is. odd. Per- 
haps he was familiar with it as a dialectal form. 

58 11. My father's Portuguese recollections. Cf. ante, p. 22. 

58 23. The Garter itself. The Order of the Garter is the highest 
Order in Great Britain ; it consists of the king and twenty-five knights 
companions, to which number may be added foreign sovereigns and 
occasionally extra companions. The garter is a band of blue velvet 
worn about the left leg. The motto of the Order is : " Honi soit qui 
mal y pense." It was instituted by Edward III between 1344 and 
1350. 

60 9. Hartley Coleridge, born 1796, died 1849, eldest son of S. T. 
Coleridge, was very interesting .as a child, and was celebrated by his 



NOTES 



413 



father (Sonnets, Campbell's Coleridge, p. 66) and by Wordsworth {To 
H. C. Six Years Old) in verse ; as a man he showed considerable poet- 
ical talent, and he was the best beloved of all the " Lakers " ; but his 
life was an unfortunate one, on account of his exceptionally sensitive 
and indolent nature. 

61 1. As rigorously as ancient Rome through every century con- 
cealed her real name. In Pliny's (a.d. 23-79) Natural History, Book III, 
Chap. IX, appears apparently for the first time the statement as to Rome's 
secret name. He says there that Valerius Soranus suffered death for 
divulging the name. He also speaks (XXVIII, 4) of the practice of 
"evocation" to which De Quincey refers in his footnote (which see) 
and of the necessity of keeping secret on this account the name of the 
tutelary deity of the city (not the name of the city). Plutarch, a genera- 
tion later than Pliny, says in his Roman Questions (61) that Valerius 
Soranus was killed for divulging the name of the tutelary deity. 
Solinus (third century) in his Collectanea, I, 5, repeats Pliny's remarks. 
Macrobius (fifth century) in h.\s Saturnalia, III, 9, speaks of the matter 
of " evocation," and concludes with the general statement that on this 
account the Romans do not wish to have their tutelary god or the 
Latin name of the city known. On this probably De Quincey's remark 
is based. The other name is said to have been Valentia. 

63 27. They would have been invaded and dragooned in a month. 
Dragoon here seems to have its specific sense of " persecute by mili- 
tary force." At one time in France dragoons were quartered upon 
Protestants, with the purpose of persecuting them into a change of 
faith. 

64 17. "Uneasy lies the head," etc. Shakspere, 2 Henry IV, 
Act iii, sc. I, line 31. 

66 16. This advocate, etc. The following pages, 66-72, are a good 
example of De Quinceyan divagation ; a second and longer digression 
begins at p. 74. 

66 22. Lord Monboddo. James Burnett was born at Monboddo, 
Kincardineshire, 17 14, died 1799. ^^ published the first volume of 
his work Of the Origiji and Progress of Language in 1773. The 
passage referred to is Vol. I, Book II, Chap. Ill, especially pp. 234- 

239- 

67 3. The "'Harveys of Lord Bristol's family. See under " Hervey " 
in Dictionary of National Biography. Lord John Hervey (i 696-1 743), 
second son of the first Earl of Bristol, is the best known of the race ; 
his wife was the famous court beauty, celebrated by Pope, Gay, and 
Voltaire, Mary Lepell. Lord John was a friend of Lady Mary Wortley 



414 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCEY 

Montagu {cf. note 191 4), and with her suffered the hostility of Pope, 
who virulently attacked him (and not without retort) : as " Narcissus " 
in the Dunciad (IV, 103) ; in the first Satire, as " Lord Fanny " ; as 
" Sporus " in the Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot, and as " H — vy " in the 
Epilogue to the Satires ; not to mention his prose Letter to a Noble 
Lord. 

69 5. Birmingham counterfeit. Birmingham became early the 
chief place of manufacture of cheap wares. Hence the name Brum- 
magem, a vulgar pronunciation of the name of the city, has become in 
England a common name for cheap tawdry jewelry. 

69 31. The little skirmish, etc. See Bos well, Journal of a Tour to 
the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D., Temple Ed., p. 61 : "Lord 
Monboddo received us at his gate most courteously ; pointed to the 
Douglas arms upon his house, and told us that his great-grandmother 
was of that family. ' In such houses (said he,) our ancestors lived, who 
were better men than we.' — ' No, no, my lord (said Dr. Johnson). We 
are as strong as they, and a great deal wiser.' " 

72 24. Dr. Adam Clarke (i 762-1832) was a Methodist preacher, 
commentator, and voluminous theological writer, of high repute. His 
most important work was his Holy Bible, . . . with a Commentary and 
Critical Notes (1810-26, 8 vols.), in which, in a long note to Genesis, 
iii, I, the opinion mentioned by De Quincey is stated. 

74 27. Pariahs. The fate of social outcasts seems to have taken 
early and strong hold upon De Quincey 's mind ; one of the Suspiria 
was to have enlarged upon this theme. Strictly speaking, the Pariahs 
is that one of the lower castes of Hindu society of which foreigners 
have seen most ; it is not in all districts the lowest caste, however. 

76 24. Police reports. This highly characteristic passage should be 
compared with the quotation of Mr. Pollitt from De Quincey's editorial 
article in the Westmoreland Gazette for Aug. 8, 1818, note 340 2. 

80 25. Some avenging Tisiphone. Tisiphone, the " Blood-avenger," 
was one of the Furies ; the others were Alecto, the " Unceasing," and 
Megaera, the " Envious." These deities were called euphemistically 
Eumenides, the " Well-wishers." Cf. p. 196. 

81 1. Strulbrugs. See Swift, Gulliver's Travels, Part III, Chap. X. 

84 11. Cassandra surveys the regal abode. Cf ^schylus, Aga- 
memnon, 1072 et seq. ' 

85 24. These four were B., E., G., and H. Mr. B. was a merchant, 
like De Quincey's father; Mr. E. was a rural magistrate, in a populous 
district close upon Manchester ; these were both too busy to attend 
much to the children's affairs. Mr. G.was a banker in Lincolnshire. 



NOTES 



415 



To H,, therefore, the Rev. Samuel Hall, with Mrs. cle Quiiicey, fell 
the active charge of the children. S. H. was curate at Salford, 
practically a part of Manchester. 

86 6. Corelli . . . Jomelli . . . Cimarosa. Arcangelo Corelli 
(1653-17 1 3) was a celebrated Italian violin player and a composer for 
the violin. His first success was made at Paris at the age of nineteen. 
Niccolo Jomelli (1714-74) was another famous Italian composer; he 
produced several successful operas. Domenico Cimarosa (1749-1801), 
also an Italian, composed a very large number of dramatic pieces. 

88 9. Jacobins, but not the less Anti- Jacobins. See note 38 21. 
These names were freely used in England for sympathizers with French 
revolutionary ideas, and their opponents. The Anti-Jacobin, a weekly, 
founded in 1797, was famous in the hands of Canning and Frere. There 
was also an Anti-Jacobin Review, which ran from 1798 to 1821. 

88 2. Every Calvinist, . . . every Arminian. All Protestant oppo- 
nents of Calvinism are often called Arminians. Strictly these latter 
are the followers of James Arminius, a divine of Leyden (i 560-1609). 
The original Arminians separated from the Calvinists because of their 
objection to Calvin's doctrine of predestination. 

90 13. Cannae. A town in Apulia, Italy, where in 216 B.C. Han- 
nibal, the great Carthaginian general, nearly annihilated the Roman 
army under Terentius Varro and ^milius Paulus. The story of the 
battle is told by Livy in Book XXII of his history. 

91 30. Mr. de Loutherbourg. Philip James de Loutherbourg (1740- 
18 1 2) was a highly respected painter of landscape, marine pieces, etc., 
and a member of the Royal Academy. He was of German birth and 
Polish ancestry. He settled in London in 1771. Later, in 1783, he 
established himself at 13 Hammersmith Terrace, Chiswick (London), 
He now took up mysticism, mesmerism, and healing by prayer and faith. 
In 1794 he gave a special exhibition of his great battle-piece, "Earl 
Howe's Victory," which may have drawn the attention of the De 
Quinceys to him, if his faith cures did not. 

92 10. Carthaginian length. The Punic wars (between Rome and 
Carthage) were begun in 264 B.C., and extended over a period of 1 18 
years. 

92 12. " Hi motus animorum," etc. " These stirrings of spirits and 
these mighty strifes, restrained by the throwing of a little dust, were 
quiet." Virgil, Georgics, IV, 86-87 {qtciescunt for quiermit). The 
lines are mock-heroic where they originally stand. 



SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 



A MEETING WITH LAMB 

This selection is the first part of an article which appeared in Tait's 
Magazine for April and June, 1838, Vol. V. It is found in Works, 
Masson's Ed., Vol. Ill, pp. 34-44 ; Riverside Ed., Vol. Ill, pp. 64-76. 
For other personal recollections of Lamb and his contemporaries, see 
Mason's Personal Traits of British Authors, in one volume of which 
Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Lamb occupy pp. 1-173. ^f- ^^^^ ^^ 
Quincey's paper on Lamb, Masson's Ed., Vol. V, pp. 215-258. 

93 ] 7. " Elia." Over this pseudonym Lamb published the delight- 
ful essays which appeared in the London Magazine in 1820-23, ^^^ 
which are said to have been exceeded in popularity at the time only by 
the Opium Confessions, which came out in the same magazine during 
the same period. The name Elia is said to have been that of an obscure 
clerk in the old South Sea House, in which office Lamb was before he 
entered that of the East India Company. 

93, footnote. In another place. Cf. Works, Riverside Ed., Vol. II, 
p. 223, note ; Vol. VI, p. 324 ; Masson's Ed., Vol. I, p. 194, note ; 
Vol. XI, p. 382. 

94, footnote. The utter failure of Mr. Coleridge, judging from his 
attempt in his " Table-Talk." In the Table-Talk (Coleridge's Works, 
Vol. VI, p. 319) we read : " Talent, lying in the understanding, is often 
inherited ; genius, being the action of reason and imagination, rarely 
or never." Also (p. 481): "Genius must have talent for its com- 
plement and implement, just as, in like manner, imagination must have 
fancy." 

94 21. Miss Lamb. Mary Lamb (i 764-1847) was the sister of 
Charles, whom she assisted in the production of Tales from Shakes- 
peare (1807), and who included some of her poems in his own pub- 
lications. She is often referred to in the Essays as " my cousin 
Bridget Elia." Mary Lamb was subject to attacks of insanity, in 
one of which she killed her mother. 

94 26. His play of "John Woodvil." Lamb published this drama 
in the Elizabethan style in 1802. In treatment of the emotions it was 
not deficient, but in plot and character it was decidedly weak. 

95 5. The "Gebir" of Mr. Walter Savage Landor. The Gebir 
appeared in 1798, and established its author's position in English letters. 
Its character is well indicated by De Quincey. 

95 12. "Lyrical Ballads" also appeared in 1798; it included the 
Tintern Abbey Lines of Wordsworth, and the Ancient Mariner of 



NOTES 



417 



Coleridge, and was, beyond doubt, an epoch-making work in English 
poetry. 

95 16. A library which no man had read but myself. De Quincey 
often dwells proudly upon his early adherence to the views and the poetry 
of Wordsworth and Coleridge ; but perhaps he somewhat overstates 
the general ignorance concerning them. In the article on Oxford in 
the Autobiography (Riverside Ed., Vol. II, p. 569 ; Masson's Ed., Vol. II, 
p. 60) he says : "In 1803, when I entered at Oxford, that name [Words- 
worth] was absolutely unknown ; and the finger of scorn, pointed at it 
in 1802 by the first or second number of the Edinburgh Review, failed 
to reach its mark from absolute defect of knowledge in the public mind. 
Some fifty besides myself knew who was meant by ' that poet who had 
cautioned his friend against growing double,' etc. ; to all others it was 
a profound secret." Cf. also note 242 28. Yet in this very article 
(a review of Southey's Thalaba, the Destroyer, in Edinburgh Review, 
October, 1802, Vol. I, No. i, pp. 63-83), in which Jeffrey pays his 
respects (p. 68) to " that poet who commemorates, with so much effect, 
the chatterings of Harry Gill's teeth, tells the tale of the one-eyed hunts- 
man * who had a cheek like a cherry,' and beautifully warns his studious 
friend of the risk he ran of ' growing double ' " (see Wordsworth's The 
Tables Turned, 1798), — in this same article (p. 64) we read: "The 
authors of whom we are now speaking [Wordsworth, Coleridge, and 
Southey], have, among them, unquestionably, a very considerable por- 
tion of poetical talent, and have, consequently, been enabled to seduce 
many into an admiration of the false taste (as it appears to us) in which 
most of these productions are composed. They constitute, at present, the 
most formidable conspiracy that has lately been formed against sound 
judgment in matters poetical; and are entitled to a larger share of our 
censorial notice, than could be spared for an individual delinquent." Con- 
cerning the controversy itself, see Vaughan's English Literary Criticism, 
Introduction, or Courthope's The Liberal Movement in English Literature. 

95 18. "High-Born Helen." This can be found as Helen in most 
collections of Charles Lamb's works. It is entirely in the romantic vein. 

95 19. The ingenious imitations of Burton. "Curious Fragments, 
extracted from a common-place book, which belonged to Robert Burton, 
the famous author of the Anatomy of Melancholy" is the full title 
of these three "extracts," which came out with Joh^t Woodvil in 1802. 
Burton pubUshed his great work in 1621. 

95 22. The Edinburgh notice of them. This notice is Article VII 
in the third number of the Review (April, 1803, Vol. II, pp. 90-98). 
Its character is accurately indicated by De Quincey's remarks below. 



41 8 SELECTIONS EROM DE QUINCEY 

96 10. From the age of Thespis, i.e., from the rudest age of the 
drama. Thespis, who lived in the sixth century B.C., was the reputed 
founder of tragedy. 

96 10. Entitled to the hircus. De Quincey here follows the Edin- 
burgh reviewers (p. 91) in using the Latin rather than the English word. 
The goat is said to have been made the prize of tragedy in Thespis' 
time. 

96 14. As he was afterwards among the first to hoot at his own 
farce. Lamb's farce, Mr. H., appeared in 1806 and was hooted off the 
stage the first night. 

97 8. Last Supper of Da Vinci. A famous painting by Leonardo 
da Vinci (1452-1519) on the wall of the refectory in the Convent of 
Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan, Italy; finished in 1498. It is well 
known in the engraving of Morghen. 

97 8. Group from the Sistine Chapel. The Sistine, or Sixtine, 
Chapel is the papal private chapel, built in 1473 ^y Pope Sixtus IV. 
Its walls and ceilings are covered by magnificent paintings, of which 
the most celebrated are the pictures by Michelangelo of the Creation, 
the Deluge, and the Judgment. 

97 10. Carlo Dolce, or Dolci (1616-86), was a Florentine painter, of 
good execution but inferior genius, who is best known through his 
Madonnas. The painting referred to by De Quincey, in the collection 
of the Marquis of Exeter, is a fine picture of " Christ breaking the 
Bread." 

97 12. Charles Lamb . . . Carlo Dolce. The latter name in 
Italian might mean ' sweet Charles.' 

97 15. Hazlitt amongst others. William Hazlitt (i 778-1 830) was 
a famous English critic and a friend — more or le"ss steadfast — of 
Wordsworth, Lamb, and Coleridge. 

97 16. Quam nihil ad genium, Papiniane, tuum ! " How alto- 
gether little to your taste, Papinian ! " This passage occurs on the 
title-page of the Lyrical Ballads, second, third, and fourth editions, and 
thence no doubt De Quincey took it. The earlier history of the expres- 
sion, as Professor Dowden has kindly pointed out to me, is traced 
in Hutchinson's Edition of Lyrical Ballads, London, 1898, p. lix : 
•' Coleridge found the line in Anderson's British Poets, Vol. Ill, p. 238, 
where it occurs in the foreword from the author [Selden] of the Illus- 
trations prefixed to Drayton's Polyolbion.^' ^milius Papinianus, a.d. 
175-212, was a Roman lawyer of great distinction and probity. After 
having enjoyed the confidence of Septimius Severus, he lost his life for 
refusing to justify Caracalla's murder of his brother Geta. Papinian's 



NOTES * 419 

opinions retained great weight as precedents, and the Roman law stu- 
dents were called Papinianists when they had reached the third year of 
their five years' course. Hutchinson asserts that Papinianus, in the case 
of the Lyrical Ballads, "is no other than that 'counsellor keen,' Sir 
James Mackintosh, for whom Coleridge nursed a ludicrously vehement 
antipathy." De Quincey, apparently, addresses Hazlitt. 

97 25. Not an Ip-yov, but a irapep-yov. " Not a vocation, but an avo- 
cation." Lamb has given us a few poems, such as Hester and The Old 
Familiar Faces, that are really immortal ; those mentioned by De Quincey 
are certainly not among the number. 

102 1. Member of "the Honourable Society of the Middle Tem- 
ple." The Temple was originally a lodge (in the Strand) of the 
mediaeval religious order of Knights Templars (so called from their 
early headquarters in the Crusaders' Palace, or Temple of Solomon, in 
Jerusalem). When this order was dissolved, its property passed to the 
crown and later to the Knights Hospitalers. In 1346 they leased part 
of it to students of the law, and on its site now stand the two Inns of 
Court known as the Inner and the Middle Temple. These have ever 
since been used by barristers, and are the property of the Societies of 
the Inner and Middle Temple, who have the right of calling students to 
the bar. The Inner Temple was so termed because it was within the 
old city of London ; the Middle Temple was between the Inner and 
the Outer, which latter, the part not leased to the lawyers, was event- 
ually converted into Exeter Buildings and lost its ancient name. 
De Quincey was a student of the Middle Temple, "eating terms," 
in a very desultory De Quinceyan way, for a while in 1808. 

103 16. A Roman Catholic convert amongst the bloody idolaters 
of Japan. Jesuit missionaries came early to Japan and had consider- 
able success. A violent persecution of Christians was undertaken by 
the Tokugawa dynasty; Christianity was proscribed; the missionaries 
were expelled by decree. In 1637 the peasantry of a convert district 
rose in rebellion, whereupon they were all massacred. It was not 
until after the overthrow of the Tokugawa dynasty and the introduc- 
tion of foreign influence — about the time of De Quincey's death — 
that the proclamations against Christianity disappeared. 

104 5. Allow yourself in such opinions. This use of allow as 
" permit (oneself) to indulge (in) " is certainly not common ; but com- 
pare (from the Murray Dictionary) Paley's Sermons (181 5), Vol. VII, 
p. 1 26 : " The true child of God allows himself in no sin whatever." 
Also Ruskin's Modern Painters (i860). Vol. V, Part IX, Chap. V, sec. 5 : 
" It refuses to allow itself in any violent or ' spasmodic ' passion." 



42 o ' SELECTIONS EROM DE QUINCE Y 

104 11. " The many men so beautiful," etc. From Part IV of The 
Ancient Mariner. 

104 13. A gang of Wapping vagabonds. Wapping is a quarter 
of London, along the north bank of the Thames, below the Tower. 
It is the haunt of sailors. 



A MEETING WITH COLERIDGE 

Under the title " Samuel Taylor Coleridge : By the English Opium- 
Eater," De Quincey contributed four articles to Taifs Edinburgh 
Magazine for September, October, and November, 1834, and January, 
1835. Three of these articles De Quincey revised and made into one 
paper for Selections Grave and Gay, Vol. II, which was published in 
1854. What is here included is therefore the beginning of the revised 
paper; it is found in Works, Masson's Ed., Vol. II, pp. 138-153 ; River- 
side Ed., Vol. Ill, pp. 153-170. For other personal accounts of Cole- 
ridge, see Mason, Personal Traits of British Authors. 

106 6. " Lyrical Ballads." See p. 95, and notes 95 12, I6, 22. 

106 19. Professor Wilson, etc. John Wilson is best known by the 
Nodes Ainbrosiana; — dialogues on popular topics — which he contrib- 
uted to Blackwood, over the pseudonym Christopher North, in 1822-35. 
Cf. Introduction, p. xxx, and De Quincey on Oxford, Riverside Ed., 
Vol. II, pp. 567-570; Masson's Ed., Vol. II, pp. 59-61. 

107 6. Throwing frankincense upon the altars of Caesar. Cf 
Bryce's Holy Roman Empire, pp. 22-23 • " From the time of Julius and 
Augustus his [the Emperor's ; Caesar's] person had been hallowed by 
the office of chief pontiff and the tribunician power; to swear by his 
head was considered the most solemn of all oaths ; his effigy was 
sacred, even on a coin ; to him or to his Genius temples were erected 
and divine honours paid while he lived ; and when, as it was expressed, 
he ceased to be among men, the title of Divus was accorded to him, 
after a solemn consecration. In the confused multiplicity of mythol- 
ogies, the worship of the Emperor was the only worship common to 
the whole Roman world, and was therefore that usually proposed as a 
test to the Christians on their trial." 

107 13. Enlarged edition of the poems. PubUshed in 1800. 

107 21. "Joan of Arc." The first edition was published in 1796, 
the second, greatly altered, in 1798. Cf. De Quincey's Joan of Arc, 
and notes. 

107 22. Ode entitled *' France." Published, with other political 



NOTES 



421 



pieces, in 1798, after having appeared in the Morning Post newspaper 
(Masson). 

107 24. "Anthology." English Ant/io/ogj/ ior iygg-1800, in 2 vols., 
published at Bristol and edited by Southey. 

107 26. The small volume of poems, etc. The first edition, 
entitled Poems on Various Subjects, by S. T. Coleridge^ late of Jesus 
College, Cambridge, was published at Bristol in 1796 ; the second at 
London in 1797 ; the third at London in 1803 (Masson). 

108 8. Was then residing at Malta. Coleridge was private secre- 
tary to the governor of Malta, Vice-Admiral Sir Alexander Ball, from 
July, 1804, to January, 1805, and acting public secretary till Septem- 
ber, 1805. 

108 11. An inside place in a French prison. England had declared 
war against Napoleon in 1803. 

108 24. Mr. Poole. Thomas Poole (i 765-1837) was a Bristol man 
who has become famous for his kindness to authors and his friendships 
among them. See the delightful biography by his daughter, Mrs. 
Henry Sandford : Thomas Poole and his Friends, 2 vols., 1S88. There 
we read (Vol. II, p. 190) that, on July 26, Cottle, the Bristol publisher 
and authors' friend, " was writing to Tom Poole a note of introduction, 
describing 'the bearer, Mr. De Quincey,' as 'a Gentleman of Oxford, a 
scholar and a man of genius,' who felt ' a high admiration for Cole- 
ridge's character,' and desired to make his acquaintance." 

108 26. Lord Egmont's, etc. This, the third Earl of Egmont, was 
the first who took no prominent place in English affairs. Spencer 
Perceval, however, his younger brother, was a distinguished lawyer. 
Chancellor of the Exchequer (1807), and Prime Minister (1809). He 
was assassinated May n, 1812, in the lobby of the House of Commons, 
by a man who believed he had a grievance against the government. 

109 18. Alfoxton. More correctly spelled Alfoxden. 

109 19. Occupied ... by that poet. Wordsworth lived at Alfoxden 
in 1797-98, in order to be near Coleridge, who was then living in the little 
cottage of Tom Poole at Nether Stowey, three miles from Alfoxden. 
For a full account of his occupancy of the cottage, see Letters of Samuel 
Taylor Coleridge, edited by Ernest Hartley Coleridge, 1895, ^*^^- ^» 
pp. 185 ff. Cf. also Hazlitt's charming account of his visit to Nether 
Stowey i^My First Acquaintance with Poets), which should be compared 
with De Quincey's. 

109 24. Glanced at in the poem of '' Ruth." The allusions are 
less considerable than De Quincey would lead us to expect ; in an 
earlier version glanced at read sketched, an utter exaggeration. 



422 SELECTIONS EROM DE QUINCE Y 

109 25. The interval, etc. Wordsworth left Cambridge in 1791, 
and settled at Grasmere in 1799. He lived in France, 1791-92 ; settled 
at Racedown, Dorsetshire, in 1795; Alfoxden, 1797; Goslar, in the 
Harz, North Germany, in 1798-99. De Quincey gives an entirely false 
impression as to the length of Wordsworth's stay in Alfoxden ; he did 
not spend a " good deal " of the eight years there. Important as the 
Alfoxden period was in Wordsworth's poetic development, its duration 
was only eleven months. 

110.7. Pythagoras was born about 582 B.C., at Samos, Greece, and 
died about 500 B.C., at Metapontum, Magna Graecia. " At Crotona, in 
Lower Italy, where he settled in 529 B.C., he founded a society whose 
aims and character were at once political, philosophical, and religious. 
All that can be traced back with certainty to Pythagoras himself is the 
doctrine of metempsychosis and the institution of certain religious and 
ethical regulations, and perhaps also the commencement of that 
mathematico-theological form of speculation, which was subsequently 
carried to a high degree of development." — Ueberweg's /('/'j^^ry ^ 
Philosophyy transl. Morris, Vol. I, p. 42. The Golden Verses, in which 
the doctrine about beans occurs, are certainly spurious. 

110 15. Yet, strange it is to say, sometimes, etc. The grammar 
seems dubious here. 

111 4. "Thdt is the very explanation he gave us." H. N. Cole- 
ridge, Samuel Taylor Coleridge's nephew and son-in-law, published his 
famous uncle's Table-Talk. In his Preface, dated May 11, 1835, he 
takes up at length this and the following accusations of plagiarism 
(Coleridge's Works, ed. Shedd, Vol. VI, pp. 241 et seq.). After quoting 
this alleged conversation he makes a pretty conclusive defence (p. 243) : 
" I was a little boy at Eton in the fifth form, some six or seven years 
after this dialogue is said to have taken place, and I can testify, what 
I am sure I could bring fifty of my contemporaries at a week's notice 
to corroborate, that this solution of the Pythagorean abstinence from 
beans was regularly taught us in school, as a matter of course, when- 
ever occasion arose." H. N. Coleridge also cites from " Lucian's 
Vitarum audio, a favorite school treatise of ours," an explanation, 
identical with the unknown German's, about Pythagoras and beans. 
But Mr. Tom Poole had also an objection to make. In a letter to 
H. N. Coleridge, dated June 22, 1835, he writes : " As for the conver- 
sation he [De Quincey] states as having had with me, I am sure 
it must be incorrect ; for as I never considered Coleridge as a Plagiarist, 
I never could have said what he has given me, as cited in your Preface. 
I have no recollection of the conversation which passed between me 



NOTES 423 

and De Quincey, but I should indeed be sorry if the whole Tone of his 
report is not unlike my general mode of expressing myself. I might 
among other things have said that I had heard Coleridge explain 
Pythagoras's prohibiting his Disciples the use of Beans, in the manner 
mentioned, as in fact I had done ; but I never heard him pretend that 
the solution was his, and therefore I could not have said that he took 
credit for the discovery." — Sandford's Thomas Poole and his Friends, 
Vol. II, pp. 305-306. De Quincey, in a note to the Collective Edition 
of his vv^orks, makes some reply to H. N. Coleridge's Preface, saying that 
the explanation about Pythagoras was well known only locally ; but 
were his accusations based on this instance alone, no reasonable man 
could notice them. 

1118. But both of us had sufficient reasons. " For what ? " writes 
Poole. " For charging Coleridge with Plagiarism ? I beg leave to say, I 
had no reason whatever." — Op. cit., p. 306. De Quincey's defence, in the 
note referred to, runs thus : (i) "/ certainly was the first person to point 
out the plagiarisms of Coleridge." (2) " I greatly understated the case." 
(3) "In stating it at all, I did so in pure kindness. Well I knew that 
sooner or later these appropriations must be detected, and I felt that it 
would break the force of the discovery, as an unmitigated sort of police 
detection, if first of all it had been announced by one who, in the same 
breath, was professing an unshaken faith in Coleridge's philosophic 
powers." — Masson's Ed., Vol. II, pp. 226-227 ; Riverside Ed., Vol. Ill, 
pp. 705-709. It may be added that there is about as little doubt of 
the fact of Coleridge's plagiarizing as there is of the impropriety of 
De Quincey's lengthened disquisition on the subject, under the guise 
of friendship. See Sara Coleridge's introduction to the Biographia 
Literaria for a full discussion of the matter. 

HI 23. The Hymn to Chamouni. "What Mr. Dequincey says 
about the Hymn in the vale of Chamouni is just." — H. N. Cole- 
ridge's Preface, op. cit., p. 245. 

112 17. Some "bright particular star." Cf. Shakspere, All's 
Well that Ends Well, Act i, sc. i, line 80. 

112 22. ''Tormented all the air." Milton uses this phrase in 
Paradise Lost, Book VI, line 244. 

112 24. "A weed of glorious feature." Wordsworth uses this 
expression in his Beggars. Spenser has it in Mtiiopotmos : or the Fate of a 
Bittterfly, line 213 : 

" What more felicitie can fall to creature 
Than to enjoy delight with libertie, . . . 
To feed on flowreg and weeds of glorious feature," 



424 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

112 27. Coleridge . . . thought fit ... to deny. " If, therefore, 
Mr. Coleridge denied that he was indebted to Milton for them, I believe 
that he meant to deny any distinct consciousness of their Miltonic 
origin, at the moment of his using them in his Ode." — H. N. Cole- 
ridge's Preface, op. cit., p. 244. 

113 6. " Insupportably advancing the foot." The quotation is not 
correct. The passage {Samson Agonistes, lines 135-140) reads: 

" But safest he who stood aloof, 
When insupportably his foot advanc't, 
In scorn of their proud arms and warlike tools, 
Spurn'd them to death by troops. The bold Ascalonite 
Fled from his lion ramp, old warriors turn'd 
Their plated backs under his heel ; 
Or groveling soil'd their crested helmets in the dust." 

Ascalon was one of the five cities of the Philistines, against whom 
Samson was fighting. 

113 7. One of the critical journals placed the two passages in 
juxtaposition. This seems a little inconsistent with De Quincey's 
claim (see note 111 8 above) to forestall discovery by his present dis- 
closures. 

113 14. Coming to Shelvocke. George Shelvocke, Voyage round 
the World, by the Way of the Great South Sea, 1719-22. London, 1726. 

113 24. To disown so slight an obligation to Shelvocke. "If he 
did, I firmly believe he had no recollection of it." — H. N. Cole- 
ridge's Preface, op. cit., p. 245. As to the fact of this obligation, see 
Wordsworth's positive statement in the preface to his We are Seven. 

114 12. "Philosophical " of Schelling. Kleine Philosophische 

Schriften was the actual title. Schelling was born in Wiirtemberg, 
1775, died 1854. He was at Munich, Bavaria, 1806-41. 

114 21. Fichte was born 1762, died 1814. He became professor of 
philosophy at the University of Berlin when it was opened in iSio. 

114 24. Coleridge's essay ... is prefaced, etc. This statement is 
discussed by Julius Hare, British Magazine, January, 1835. See the 
extract from Hare's article in H. N. Coleridge's Preface, op. cit., 
pp. 246 et seq. Hare shows that De Quincey is distinctly unfair to 
Coleridge. While the latter deprecates the notion that " an identity of 
thought, or even similarity of phrase" indicates indebtedness to Schel- 
ling, and claims "all the main and fundamental ideas" as his own, yet 
he in the same passage gives his readers permission to attribute to his 
German predecessor " whatever shall be found in this or any future 



NOTES 



425 



work of mine, that resembles or coincides with " his doctrines. That 
Coleridge translated several pages from Schelling without acknowledg- 
ment all must admit. But Hare believes him to have been ignorant of 
the origin of the passage; he suggests that Coleridge must have placed 
the translated extract, without Schelling's name, in a notebook among 
observations and dissertations of his own, and then, years afterward, 
printed it innocently as his own. 

115 18. Not John Paul. Some translations from the writings of 
John Paul Richter (1763-1825) were among the first of De Quincey's 
publications after the Confessions. Richter's style is not unlike De 
Quincey's in the Suspiria. 

116 14. Milton's account, etc. " Whatever Time, or the heedless 
hand of blind Chance, hath drawn down from of old to this present in 
her huge drag-net, whether fish, or seaweed, shells or shrubs, unpicked, 
unchosen, these are the Fathers." — Milton's Tract Of Prelatical 
Episcopacy^ published in 1641 (Masson). 

116 16. The monstrous chaos with which an African Obeah man 
stuffs his enchanted scarecrows. Obi, or obeah, is a kind of magic or 
sorcery practised by the African negroes and their descendants in 
America. Bones, feathers, rags, and such trash are the charms used; 
and a scarecrow thus prepared by the obi-man is supposed to possess 
peculiar defensive power. The negroes still look to the obi for the 
cure of disease, the satisfaction of revenge or spite, the discovery of 
theft, etc. It is held, however, that the power of the obi over the 
negro mind is due to the furtive and skillful use of poison. 

116 31. Proces-verbal. In French law, this is a legal instrument in 
which some qualified officer sets down an infringement of the law, with 
all its circumstances ; in this case the stones, hinges, nails, etc., would 
fill up the proces-verbal of this child's misdemeanor. 

117 26. "He talks very much like an angel, and does nothing at 
all." Cf. David Garrick's humorous epitaph on Goldsmith (1774) : 

" Here lies Poet Goldsmith, for shortness called Noll, 
Who wrote like an angel, and talked like poor Poll." 

118 26. Rarely . . . opened them at all. As Masson remarks, 
this is a pretty accurate description of De Quincey's own practice in 
later years, if not throughout his life. 

118 27. Bourrienne mentions, etc. Louis Antoine Fauvelet de 
Bourrienne (1769-1834) was Napoleon's private secretary in Egypt and 
during the consulate, which lasted from, 1799 to 1804. He had been 
Napoleon's friend at the military school. He published his extensive 



42 6 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

Memoirs of Napoleon in 1829; at the beginning of Chap. VI, under 
date of 1797 (when Napoleon was General-in-Chief under the Directory) 
we read : *' To satisfy himself that people wrote too much, and lost, in 
trifling and useless answers, valuable time, he told me to open only the 
letters which came by extraordinary couriers, and to leave all the rest 
for three weeks in the basket. At the end of that time it was unnec- 
essary to reply to four-fifths of these communications." 

119 10. The hideous bondage. As to Coleridge and opium-eating, 
cf. De Quincey's essay on that subject, his Confessions, edition of 1856, 
Introduction, and Campbell's Life of Coleridge, London, 1894. 

119 21. A man whom I will describe. Coleridge was nearly thirty- 
seven years old at this time, his visitor being fifteen years younger. Cf. 
Wordsworth's description of Coleridge in Stanzas written in my Pocket- 
Copy of T/wmson^s Castle of Indolence. 

120 15. Chubb, the philosophic writer (1679-17 47), was a mechanic 
who took a place among the eighteenth-century deists by various tracts. 

122 7. The Orellana. A name formerly frequently given to the 
Amazon River, from its discoverer, Francisco de Orellana (1490-1546). 

122 30. Bishop Berkeley's " Siris." George Berkeley (1685-1753) 
became Bishop of Cloyne, in Ireland, in 1734. As a philosopher he 
was an extreme idealist. In 1744 he published A Chain of Philosoph- 
ical Reflections and Inquiries concerning the Virtues of Tar- Water, etc., 
to which in the next edition he gave the name Siris. He devoted much 
time during his later years to the propagation of knowledge concerning 
tar-water as a panacea. 

123 5. The Homeric chain of gold. See Iliad, Book VIII, line 19. 



RECOLLECTIONS OF WORDSWORTH 

De Quincey published three articles on Wordsworth in Tait^s Maga- 
zine for January, February, and April, 1839, Vol. VI ; these, revised and 
enlarged, he republished in the Collective Edition in 1854. Our present 
extract is the introduction to the formal biography of the poet. It 
is found in Works, Masson's Ed., Vol. II, pp. 229-252 ; Riverside Ed., 
Vol. Ill, pp. 260-293. For other accounts of Wordsworth, — and better 
in some respects, — see Mason, Personal Traits of British Authors. 

124 2. I have already mentioned. C/: p- 95; also De Quincey's 
Works, Riverside Ed., Vol. II, p. 567 ; Masson's Ed., Vol. II, p. 59. 

125 13. The " Churchyard amongst the Mountains." Books VI- 
VII of Wordsworth's Excursion. 



NOTES 427 

125 17. The Miltonic names of Valdarno and Vallombrosa. See 
Paradise Lost, Book I, lines 290, 303. The Val' d'Arno is the valley 
(of the river Arno) in which Florence is situated. Vallombrosa (" shady 
valley ") is eighteen miles from Florence. Cf. Wordsworth's At Vallojn- 
brosa {^Memorials of a Tour in Italy, XVIII), 

125 22. " Could field, or grove," etc. These five lines from the latter 
part of the sixth book of the Excursion, somewhat differently quoted 
by De Quincey in the text and footnote, now read thus : 

" Ah ! what a warning for a thoughtless man, 
Could field or grove, could any spot of earth. 
Show to his eye an image of the pangs 
Which it hath witnessed ; render back an echo 
Of the sad steps by which it hath been trod ! " 

127 3. A little white cottage. Dove Cottage, as it is called, — 
because once the Dove and Olive Bough Inn — is now the property of 
the English nation and is kept open to visitors. Wordsworth occupied 
it from 1799 to 1808 ; De Quincey, or his family, from 1809 to 1830. 
Cf. De Quincey's description in the Confessions, p. 226, also note 226 12. 

127 18. In early youth I laboured, etc. This is a highly interesting 
confession, if we may accept it as an entirely accurate one. Beyond 
question, De Quincey became in time, as he here intimates, preemi- 
nently able to " follow out the subsidiary thoughts into which one lead- 
ing thought often radiates," and extraordinarily fond of that exercise. 

128 8. A worldly tone of sentiment in Wordsworth. This is cer- 
tainly, as Professor Winchester has suggested, a good example of the 
strain of malice in De Quincey's notices of Wordsworth. There seems 
to be no ground for this charge. 

128 9. Mrs. Hannah More (1745-1833) was an English religious 
writer of the so-called ultra-evangelical school. In her youth she knew 
Garrick, Dr. Johnson, Burke, and Reynolds. She was interested in 
establishing schools for the poor as an antidote to atheism. She wrote 
many tracts, voicing her rather severe views as to conduct, such as The 
Shepherd of Salisbury Plain, as well as other works, like Calebs in 
Search of a Wife ; all these were much read in the early part of this 
century, and some are still freely circulated. Mrs. de Quincey, our 
author's mother, not only subscribed to Mrs. More's opinions, but also 
enjoyed her friendship and very frequently sought her advice. Cf Mrs. 
Baird Smith's remarks in Japp, De Quincey Memorials, Vol. I, p. 13; 
also De Quincey's account, Works, Riverside Ed., Vol. Ill, pp. 584-594 ; 
Masson's Ed., Vol. II, pp. 446-454. 



428 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

128 16. In the course of 1807, etc. Coleridge arrived in England 
from Italy Aug. 11, 1806. He had left Malta Sept. 21, 1805. See note 
108 8. 

128 19. Already recorded. See pp. 106 ^/j,?^. 

128 23. Engaged by the Royal Institution to lecture. These lec- 
tures, Coleridge's first course, were delivered in the months February 
to June, 1808. They were on the " Principles of Poetry." Sixteen 
were contracted for, and were probably all delivered. 

128 26. Conveying his family to Keswick, where Mrs. Coleridge's 
sister, Mrs. Southey, resided (at Greta Hall). From this time on 
Coleridge did not spend more than a few days under the same roof 
with his wife. His entire family lived with Southey, who, with some 
cooperation from other relatives and friends, educated the children and 
provided for them all. 

128 30. Hartley, aged nine, Derwent, about seven. As to the 
former, see note 60 9. "The career of Derwent," writes Mr. J. D. 
Campbell, "both as to the conduct of life and its rewards, was in marked 
contrast to his brother's. His bent was to be a student, but he was 
forced into action, partly by circumstance, partly by an honorable ambi- 
tion. During a long and useful life ... he did signal service to the 
cause of national education. He cannot be said to have left his mark 
on literature, but his chief work. The Scriptural Character of the Eng- 
lish Church, won the admiration of F. D. Maurice for ' its calm scholar- 
like tone and careful English style.' " He died in 1883. 

128 31. Her beautiful little daughter. Sara Coleridge (1802-52) 
married her cousin Henry Nelson Coleridge, and succeeded him, after 
his death, as editor of her father's works. Cf. De Quincey's footnote, 
and note 111 8. 

129 26. Madame Catalani. Angelica Catalani, an Italian singer, 
was born in 1779, made her first appearance in Venice in 1795, ^^^ ^^^ 
a successful career for thirty years. She died at Paris in 1849. She 
had been married three years before De Quincey met her. 

129 29. Lady Hamilton (17^1-1815), wife of Sir William Hamilton 
( 1 730-1803), English ambassador at Naples, is notorious as the mistress 
of the great Lord Nelson. She was of mean birth and hopelessly illit- 
erate. In early years she had a beautiful face, but later in life she grew 
very stout. She was undoubtedly a woman of considerable power of 
mind, and she retained her pernicious influence over Lord Nelson till 
his death. 

130 20. White Moss. This name for a hill points to the fact that 
its flat top was covered with a " moss," or swamp. 



NOTES 



429 



I 



131 13. Semele in the Grecian Mythology. The allusion is to the 
familiar story how Semele, the human maiden, wooed by Jupiter in 
shape of man, was persuaded by Juno's jealous machinations to insist 
upon his appearance to her in divine apparel. He came, and she per- 
ished in the flames caused by his lightnings. 

131 27. Charlemagne and all his peerage. Charlemagne and his 
twelve paladins, or attendant peers, became the centre of a great num- 
ber of poems in the Middle Ages, of which The Song of Roland is the 
most important representative. 

131 28. Caesar and his equipage. Caesar's retinue was always of 
peculiar size and splendor. 

131 29. Death on his pale horse. Cf. Revelations, vi, 8. About 
1815 Benjamin West painted a famous picture on the subject "Death 
on the Pale Horse," which is now in Philadelphia. 

132 6. No Roman nomenclator. In ancient Rome candidates can- 
vassing for office were attended in public by a nomenclator (/>., 
name-caller), who informed the candidate of the names of persons 
they met. 

132 31. Mrs. Wordsworth, etc. Mary Hutchinson, who became 
Wordsworth's wife in October, 1802, had been known to him since 
1777, when she was his fellow-pupil in a dame's school at Penrith 
(Masson). 

133 9. Mr. Slave-Trade Clarkson. Thomas Clarkson (1760-1846) 
was an English abolitionist, who published in 1808 a History of the 
Abolition of the Slave-Trade, whence he gained the appellation bestowed 
upon him here. This book Coleridge, who was a friend of the author, 
reviewed in the Edinburgh Review, having before begged the editor "to 
be merciful to an imperfect book for the sake of the almost perfect 
character of the author." Cf p. 227, 

134 12. Like stars, etc. The authoritative text reads : 

" Her eyes as stars of Twilight fair ; 
Like Twilight's, too, her dusky hair " ; 

but De Quincey is quoting from an earlier version. The lines, like 
those above, are from She was a Phantom of Delight (1804). 

134 31. " Her face was of Egyptian brown." From Wordsworth's 
Beggars. Egyptian means " gipsy " here {cf. Shakspere, Othello, Act iii, 
sc. 4, line 56 ; Longfellow, Spanish Student, Act iii, sc. 2, line 13) ; 
the latter word is a shortening of the former, the gipsies being popu- 
larly supposed to come from Egypt. Really they are, by the testimony 
of their speech, of a Hindu race. 



43 o SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCEY 

135 I. They were wild and startling. Cf. Wordsworth, Tinterti 
Abbey (to Dorothy Wordsworth) : 

" And read 
My former pleasures in the shooting Ughts 
Of thy wild eyes." 

" Nor catch from thy wild eyes these gleams 
Of past existence." 

135 33. German charcoal-burners. Referring to their experiences 
in the Harz mountain district. 

135 33. Couched his eye, etc. DeQuincey seems fond of this word. 
Cf. article on Oxford (Riverside Ed., Vol. II, p. 561 ; Masson's Ed., 
Vol. II, p. 55): " My eye had been couched into a secondary power of 
vision," etc. Cf. also Chaucer, Parliament of Birds, lines 215-217 : 

" And with hir wyle 
She couched hem after as they shuld serve, 
Som for to slee, and som to wounde and kerve." 

138 3. "Half-kitchen and half-parlour fire." The first of the 
sonnets headed Personal Talk (last four lines) now reads : 

" To sit without emotion, hope, or aim. 
In the loved presence of my cottage-fire, 
And listen to the flapping of the flame. 
Or kettle whispering its faint undersong." 

In his prefatory note, however, Wordsworth says : " The last line but 
two stood, at first, better and more characteristically, thus : 

' By my half-kitchen and half-parlour fire.' " 

138 17. " What-like." A provincial word, as De Quincey intimates, 
meaning, " of what appearance." Century Dictionary quotes from 
Dickens, Our Midical Friend, Book III, Chap. II : " What-like the 
home and what-like the friend." 

138 19. A reviewer in "Tait's Magazine," etc. As Masson adds 
to De Quincey's footnote, " the paper in Tait referred to was a Review of 
Books of the Season, one of them being ' Tilt's Medallion Portraits of 
Modern English Authors, with illustrative notices by H. F. Chorley.' 
The reviewer's words were : ' The finest head, in every way, in the 
series, is that of Charles Lamb.' " 

139 32. Elegantes formarum spectatrices. "Elegant critics of 
beauty." Cf. Terence, Etmuchus, III, 5, 18 : 

" Quom ipsus me noris, quam elegans formarum spectator siem? " 



NOTES 



431 



141 8. Voltaire ... a sneering Jewish elder. Fran9ois Marie 
Arouet, who assumed the name " de Voltaire" (1694-1778), the world- 
famous French dramatist, novelist, and reformer, exhibited the charac- 
teristics which Hayden thus emphasized best, perhaps, in his letters. 
" His immense energy and versatility, his adroit and unhesitating flattery 
when he chose to flatter, his ruthless sarcasm when he chose to be sar- 
castic, his rather unscrupulous business faculty, his rather more than 
unscrupulous resolve to double and twist in any fashion so as to escape 
his enemies, — all these things appear throughout the whole mass of 
letters." — Saintsbury. 

141 20. Miss Ferrier, in one of her novels. Susan Ferrier (1782- 
1854) was a Scottish novelist whose material, like that of her more bril- 
liant predecessor. Miss Austen, was drawn from domestic life. Her first 
novel. Marriage (18 18), contains, on page 170 of the recent Routledge 
Edition, the passage referred to : " No Englishman, with his round face 
and trim meadows, shall ever captivate me. Heath-covered hills, and 
high cheek-bones, are the charms that must win my heart." 

142 27. Irving, the pulpit orator. Edward Irving (i 792-1834), 
Scotch preacher and friend of Carlyle, had a brilliant career until his 
curious religious notions called down the censure of the Scotch clergy, 
and brought about his condemnation for heresy. The Irvingite Church, 
founded on his doctrine, has elaborate orders and liturgy, and lays 
especial stress upon the continuance of prophecy and the gift of tongues. 

143 23. "Peter's Letters." Lockhart's well-known pubUcation, 
Peter^s Letters to his Kinsfolk (1819), was a compend of most that was 
interesting in the personalia and literary talk of Edinburgh, Glasgow, 
and thereabouts at the time. In Letter LI, in an account of Words- 
worth, Lockhart writes : " The large, dim, pensive eye, that dwells 
almost forever upon the ground, and the smile of placid abstraction, 
that clothes his long, tremulous, melancholy lips, complete a picture of 
solemn, wrapped-up, contemplative genius." 

144 8. *' The light that never was on land or sea." Cf. Words- 
worth's Elegiac Stanzas, stiggested by a picture of Peele Castle, in a storm, 
painted by Sir George Beaumont: 

" Ah ! THEN, if mine had been the Painter's hand, 
To express what then I saw ; and add the gleam, 
The light that never was, on sea or land, .,,, 

The consecration, and the Poet's dream." 

144 33. Richardson the painter's, etc. "Jonathan Richardson 
(born about 1665, died 1745) published in 1734 a volume of Explanatory 



432 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

Notes and Remarks on Paradise Lost, with a Life of Milton, containing 
particulars which Richardson had collected about Milton personally." 

— Masson. 

145 13. This portrait was the only one, etc. " It was between 
1721 and 1725, when Mrs. Deborah Clarke, Milton's youngest and only 
surviving daughter, was living in old age and in very humble circum- 
stances in Moorfields, London, that the engraver Vertue and others 
went to see her for the special purpose of consulting her about portraits 
of her father. Some that were shown her she rejected at once ; but 
one * crayon drawing ' moved her in the manner which De Quincey 
reports. This is the portrait which came into Richardson's possession; 
and after Richardson's death in 1745 it was acquired by Jacob Tonson 
tertius, of the Tonson publishing family. There seems to be little 
doubt that it was a drawing of Milton from the life by Faithorne about 
1670, when Milton's History of Britain appeared with that portrait of 
him by Faithorne which is the only authentic print of him in later life, 
and worth all the other current portraits put together. Faithorne seems 
to have made two drawings, closely resembling each other, of Milton, — 
that (now lost) from which the engraving was made for the History of 
Britain, and this other ' crayon drawing ' which Richardson possessed. 
Richardson's reproduction of it in his book is spoilt by a laureate wreath 
and other flummery about the head ; and the only genuine copy of it 
known to me is a beautiful one prefixed to Mr. Leigh Sotheby's sumptu- 
ous volume entitled Ramblings in Elucidation of the Autograph of Milton, 
published in 1871. The face there is identically the same in essentials 
as that in the Faithorne engraving of 1670, though somewhat less sad 
in expression ; and the two drawings must have been by the same hand." 

— Masson. 

146 20. In that account which "The Excursion" presents, etc. 
A comparison of De Quincey's paraphrase with the original in Words- 
worth's Excursion, Book I, near the beginning, is interesting : 

" From his intellect 
And from the stillness of abstracted thought 
He asked repose ; and, failing oft to win 
The peace required, he scanned the laws of light 
Amid the roar of torrents, where they send 
From hollow clefts up to the clearer air 
A cloud of mist that, smitten by the sun, 
Varies its rainbow hues. But vainly thus, 
And vainly by all other means, he strove 
To mitigate the fever of his heart." 



NOTES 433 

147 11. The grand climacterical year. "The climacteric years or 
critical periods have been supposed to be the years ending the third, 
fifth, seventh, and ninth period of seven years, to which some add the 
eighty-first year. The sixty-third year was called the grand or great 
clifnacieric. It has been believed that each of these periods is attended 
with some remarkable change in respect to health, life, or fortune." 
— Century Dictionary. The derivation is from Greek KXifiaKT-rip, " a 
step of a ladder," " a dangerous period of life." 

147 30. " Childer." Familiar dialectal plural of <r/i?7^; historically 
more correct than the standard form. Cf. cildru in oldest English. 

148 4. Into his 82d year. Into his 8ist only. 

148 23. There was also a wreath of laurel. vSee note 145 13. 

149 11. ''The starry Galileo." From Byron's Childe Harold's 
Pilgrimage, Canto IV, stanza 54 : 

" The starry Galileo, with his woes." 

150 6. The German and the Spanish will inevitably sink, etc. This 
preposterous statement can only be explained by recognizing the coinci- 
dence in De Quincey of a considerable ignorance of philology with a 
John-Bullish view of things foreign, hardly excused by comparison with 
that of Doctor Johnson. 

150 14. Our personal memorials (unhappily so slender) of Shaks- 
pere. In his article on Shakspere in Encyclopcedia Britan^iica (1837) 
(Riverside Ed., Vol. VI, p. 9; Masson's Ed., Vol. IV, p. 17) De Quincey 
goes at length into the question of the dearth of knowledge about 
Shakspere's life. 



CONFESSIONS OF AN ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER 

The first publication in book form (1822) was prefaced by the follow- 
ing notice : 

" Notice to the Reader : The incidents recorded in the Preliminary Con- 
fessions lie within a period of which the earlier extreme is now rather more, and 
the latter extreme less, than nineteen years ago : consequently, in a popular way 
of computing dates, many of the incidents might be indifferently referred to a 
distance of eighteen or of nineteen years ; and, as the notes and memoranda for 
this narrative were drawn up originally about last Christmas, it seemed most 
natural in all cases to prefer the former date. In the hurry of composing the 
narrative, though some months had then elapsed, this date was everywhere 
retained: and, in many cases, perhaps, it leads to no error, or to none of 
importance. But in one instance, viz, where the author speaks of his own 



434 SELECTIONS EROM DE QUINCEY 

birth-day, this adoption of one uniform date has led to a positive inaccuracy 
of an entire year: for. during the very time of composition, the nineteenth year 
from the earlier term of the whole period revolved to its close. It is, therefore, 
judged proper to mention, that the period of that narrative lies between the 
early part of July, 1802, and the beginning or middle of March, 1803. 

Oct. 1, 1821." 

The full title in the magazine was Confessiojis of an English Opitwi- 
Eater: Being an Extract from the Life of a Scholar. 

152 1. I have, at last, concluded on taking it. To this account 
from within of the origin of the Confessions may be added this external 
information from Page's Life: "He had intended unambitiously to 
begin [his contributions to the London Magazine'\ with translations from 
the German ; but his opium experiences, and his resolute efforts to 
escape from the thraldom of the drug, had of course been the subject 
of conversation on his first introduction to the circle [surrounding 
Taylor and Hessey, the publishers of the magazine], which was so 
impressed by his recitals, that he was asked to inaugurate his connec- 
tion with the Magazine by a record of his opium experiences. Accord- 
ingly, there appeared in the ' London Magazine ' for October and 
November, 1821, the 'Confessions of an English Opium-Eater.'" The 
Confessiotis appeared in September and October, 1821, Appendix in 
December, 1822. The following note from the hand of Mr. H. G. Bohn 
appears in Lowndes' Bibliographer's Manual: "These 'Confessions' 
were written in a little room at the back of [what later became] 
Mr. H. G. Bohn's premises No. 4, York Street, Covent Garden, where 
Mr. De Quincey resided, in comparative seclusion, for several years." 

152 9. " Humbly to express," etc. Cf Wordsworth, White Doe 
of Rylstonc, Canto I, lines 176-177 (of the grave where the doe made 
" her sabbath couch ") : 

" That humbly would express 
A penitential loneliness." 

153, footnote. There is one celebrated man. " 2^rd November, 1821. 
I dined at Taylor's with Dr. Darling, Percival and the Opium-Eater. 
In the course of the evening the latter mentioned that the person he 
alluded to in his Confessions as far exceeding himself in the quantity of 
opium taken is Coleridge. The Opium-Eater was speaking to a surgeon 
in the north, a neighbour of Coleridge's, who supplied Coleridge with 
laudanum, and who, upon a calculation made as to the quantity 
consumed by Coleridge, found it to amount to 80,000 drops per day. 
The first time Coleridge went to the house of this surgeon, he was not at 



NOTES 435 

home, but his wife supplied Coleridge, and she saw him at once fill out 
a large wineglassful and drink it off. She was astonished, and in much 
alarm explained to him what the medicine was, as she imagined he had 
made a mistake. Very soon afterwards he drank off another glassful, 
and before he left the house he had emptied a half-pint bottle in addi- 
tion." — Woodhouse's Notes of Conversations with De Quincey, in Con- 
fessions, ed. Garnett, pp. 206-207, and Hogg's De Quincey and his 
Friends, p. 83. This statement can hardly be credited ; yet Cottle, the 
Bristol publisher, and friend of Coleridge, states, "from an undoubted 
source," that the latter was known to take a quart of laudanum in 
twenty-four hours ; 80,000 drops would be 800 teaspoonfuls. 

153 5. Have untwisted . . . the accursed chain. But see Appendix, 
pp. 255 et seq., and note 252 28. 

153 24. The eloquent and benevolent [William Wilberforce]. 
These blanks were filled in by De Quincey, as in our text, in his 
(altered) reprint of this Original Preface in the enlarged Confessions of 
1856. Wilberforce, born 1759, died 1833, was a famous orator, philan- 
thropist, and abolitionist. In 1787 he and Thomas Clarkson (see note 
133 9) began to agitate the slavery question, and they gained a final 
victory in 1807. See note 153 26, on Mr. , the philosopher. 

153 25. The late dean of [Carlisle, Dr. Isaac Milner]. Born 1750, 
died 1820 ; an intimate friend of Wilberforce. De Quincey adds in a 
long note in the edition of 1856 : " He was nominally known to the public 
as Dean of Carlisle, being colloquially always called Dean Milner ; but 
virtually he was best known in his own circle as the head of Queen's 
College, Cambridge, where he usually resided. . . . Wordsworth, who 
met him often at the late Lord Lonsdale's table, spoke of him uni- 
formly as the chief potentate colloquially of his own generation, and as 
the man beyond all others (Burke being departed) who did not live 
upon his recollections, but met the demands of every question that 
engaged his sympathy by spontaneous and elastic movements of novel 
and original thought. As an opium-eater. Dean Milner was understood 
to be a strenuous wrestler with the physical necessity that coerced him 
into this habit. From several quarters I have heard that his daily 
ration was 34 grains (or about 850 drops of laudanum), divided 
into four portions, and administered to him at regular intervals of six 
hours by a confidential valet." 

153 26. Lord [Erskine]. Thomas Erskine, first Baron Erskine 
(17 50-1823), was a famous jurist and pleader. His defence of Stockdale 
(1789) is especially celebrated. See Bradley's Orations and Arguments, 
Boston, 1897. 



436 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

153 26. Mr. , the philosopher. De Quincey added in 1856 the 

following note on Philosopher Dash, and the other blanks in the list of 
distinguished opium-eaters : " Who is Mr. Dash, the philosopher ? 
Really I have forgot. Not through any fault of my own, but on the 
motion of some absurd coward having a voice potential at the press, all 
the names were struck out behind my back in the first edition of the 
book, thirty-five years ago. I was not consulted, and did not discover 
the absurd blanks until months afterwards, when I was taunted with 
them very reasonably by a caustic reviewer. Nothing could have a 
more ludicrous effect than this appeal to shadows — to my Lord Dash, 
to Dean Dash, and to Mr. Secretary Dash. Very naturally it thus hap- 
pened to Mr. Philosopher Dash that his burning light, alas ! was extin- 
guished irrecoverably in the general melee. Meantime, there was no 
excuse whatever for this absurd interference, such as might have been 
alleged in any personality capable of causing pain to any one person 
concerned. All the cases, except, perhaps, that of Wilberforce (about 
which I have at this moment some slight lingering doubts), were 
matters of notoriety to large circles of friends. It is due to Mr. John 
Taylor, the accomplished publisher of the work, that I should acquit 
hiiti of any share in this absurdity." 

154 21. Their work-people were rapidly getting into the practice 
of opium-eating. The following remarkable passage in Charles Kings- 
ley's Alton Locke: Tailor and Poet (published in 1850), Chap. XII, 
to which attention is called by Garnett in his edition of the " Confes- 
sions, bears striking testimony to the prevalence of the habit in the 
malarious Cambridgeshire fens. Bor (below) in the Cambridge- 
shire dialect is a common form of address for man or woman ; cf. 
neigh-bor. 

" ' They as dinnot tak' spirits down thor, tak' their pennord o' elevation, then 
— women-folk especial.' 

' What 's elevation ? ' 

' Oh ! ho ! ho ! — yovv goo into druggist's shop o' market-day, into Cambridge, 
and you '11 see the little boxes, doozens and doozens, a' ready on the counter ; 
and never a ven-man's wife goo by, but what calls in for her pennord o' elevation, 
to last her out the week. Oh ! ho ! ho ! Well, it keeps women-folk quiet, it do ; 
and it 's mortal good agin ago pains.' 

' But what is it ? ' 

' Opium, bor' alive, opium ! ' 

' But doesn't it ruin their health ? I should think it the very worst sort of 
drunkenness.' 

' Ow, well, yow moi soy that — mak'th 'em cruel thin then, it do ; but what 
can bodies do i' th' ago ? ' " 



I 



NOTES 437 

154 3:1. ** That those eat now," etc. Cf. the refrain in rarnell's 
Vigil of Venus : 

'• Let those love now who never lov'd before ; 
Let those who always lov'd, now love the more." 

Parnell's poem is a translation of the Pervigilium Veneris, "■ written in 
the time of Julius Ccesar, and by some ascribed to Catullus," where the 
corresponding line reads : . 

" Cras amet qui nunquam aniavit ; quique amavit, eras amet." 

It should be noted in regard to the statement quoted above, which 
Parnell makes part of the title of his translation, that this poem is 
surely not by Catullus and that it is later than the time of Julius 
Caesar. 

155 8. «l>«vavTa o-vveroio-i. From Pindar, Olympian Odes, II, 153. 
Gray used this phrase as the motto for his Odes (i757)- In a letter to 
Rev. J. Brown, Feb. 17, 1763, he renders it: "Vocal to the intelligent 
alone." Cf. Phelps, Selections from Gray, p. 150. 

155 19. I shall present the reader with the moral of my narrative. 
See p. 252 and note 252 28. 

156 11. "Whose talk is of oxen." Cf Chaucer, Parliament of 
Birds, lines 99 et seq. 

" The wery hunter, sleping in his bed, 
To wode ayein his mynde goth anoon ; 
The juge dremeth how his plees been sped; 
The carter dremeth how his cartes goon " ; etc. 

156 19. "Humani nihil a se alienum putat." "Thinks nothing 
human foreign to him." Cf Terence, Heauton timoroumenos, Act i, sc. i, 

line 25 : , ,. . „ 

" Homo sum : humani nil a me alienum puto." 

156 29. David Ricardo. Cf pp. 235-236. Ricardo, who lived from 
1772 to 1823, published his chief work. Principles of Political Economy 
and Taxation, in 181 7. He was in Parliament for some time. 

156, footnote. A third exception, etc. William Hazlitt (1778-1830) 
is probably meant ; a brilliant, but not too well-read, critic and essayist. 

157 16. For nearly ten years. 1804-14, apparently. 

157, footnote. I know only one. Professor Wilson is meant. Cf 
note 106 19. 

158 1. In the twenty-eighth year, etc. This would be the year 
August, 181 2, to August, 1813. The " painful affection of the stomach" 



438 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

has been declared by Dr. Eatwell, in his medical examination of 
De Quincey's case, Appendix to Page's Life, to be gastrodynia, or neu- 
ralgia of the stomach. This, he says, is brought on frequently in India 
by the insufficient and crude diet of the natives, and it yields in the end 
to the habitual use of opium. See De Quincey's account of his priva- 
tions in Wales and London, pp. i68 et seq., and the testimony of Berlioz, 
note 218 5. 

158 16. My father died, etc. See notes 24 30 and 85 24. 

158 17. I was sent to various schools. To Bath Grammar School, 
Winkfield, and Manchester Grammar School ; the second was a small 
" private " school. Cf. note 25 13. 

158 33. One of my masters. Mr. Morgan, of Bath School. 

159 3. *' And a ripe and good one." Cf. Shakspere, Henry VIII, 
Act. iv, sc. 2, lines 51-52. 

159 7. A blockhead, who was in a perpetual panic. Mr. Spencer, 
the master of Winkfield School. 

159 9. A respectable scholar. Mr. Lawson, the head of Manchester 
School. 

159 14. Etonian brilliancy. De Quincey refers to the special and 
almost exclusive care bestowed upon the classical training at Eton. 
Up to 1 85 1 the regular curriculum was wholly classical, other than 
classical masters being attended during extra hours. 

160 9. This fourth . . . was a worthy man, etc. The Rev. 
Samuel Hall, De Quincey's tutor in the " World of Strife " period, is 
meant. See p. 85, and note 85 24. 

160 21. A woman of high rank. Lady Carbery. "A young 
woman some ten years older than myself, and who was as remarkable 
for her intellectual pretensions as she was for her beauty and her 
benevolence." — Confessions, Masson's Ed., Vol. Ill, p. 280. Cf Vol. I, 
Chap. XV, Mrs. de Quincey's young friend, Miss Watson, had been 
married to Lord Carbery in 1792. 

161 3. Just remark of Dr. Johnson's, etc. The passage in 
De Quincey's mind, as Professor Winchester has pointed out to me, is 
undoubtedly the following, from the impressive paper (No. 103) with 
which Johnson closed The Idler: "There are few things not purely 
evil, of which we can say, without some emotion of uneasiness, ' this is 
the last.' Those who never could agree together, shed tears when 
mutual discontent has determined them to final separation ; of a place 
which has been frequently visited, though without pleasure, the last 
look is taken with heaviness of heart." 

161 27. My whole succeeding life, etc. Cf Introduction, p. xxii. 



I 



NOTES 439 

162 8. The silence of a summer morning, etc. Cf. De Quincey's 
reflections, p. 247. 

162 18. " Pensive citadel." From Wordsworth's sonnet, beginning: 

" Nuns fret not at their convent's narrow room ; 
And hermits are contented with their cells ; 
And students with their pensive citadels." 

162 30. Eighteen years ago. Nineteen. Cf. " Notice to the Reader," 

P- 433- 

162 33. A picture of the lovely . " The housekeeper was in 

the habit of telling me that the lady had lived (meaning, perhaps, had 
been born) two centuries ago ; that date would better agree with the 
tradition that the portrait was a copy from Vandyke. All that she 
knew further about the lady was that either to the grammar school, or 
to that particular college at Oxford with which the school was con- 
nected, or else to that particular college at Oxford with which Mr. 
Lawson personally was connected, or else, fourthly, to Mr. Lawson 
himself as a private individual, the unknown lady had been a special 
benefactress. She was also a special benefactress to me, through 
eighteen months, by means of her sweet Madonna countenance. And 
in some degree it serves to spiritualise and to hallow this service that 
of her who unconsciously rendered it I know neither the name, nor the 
exact rank or age, nor the place where she lived and died. She was 
parted from me by perhaps two centuries ; I from her by the gulf of 
eternity." — De Quincey's note to revised Confessions, Masson's Ed., 
Vol. Ill, p. 297. 

163 27. "Of Atlantean shoulders," etc. Cf Milton, Paradise 
Lost, Book II, lines 305-307, concerning Beelzebub in the council : 

" Sage he stood 
With Atlantean shoulders fit to bear 
The weight of mightiest monarchies." 

163 29. As spacious as Salisbury plain. A great flat or slightly 
undulating district in Wiltshire, between Salisbury and Devizes. 

164 15. That might have wakened the Seven Sleepers. The 
Seven Sleepers of Ephesus, so often referred to in this way, were, 
according to the legend, seven young Christians who, having hidden 
themselves in a cave near Ephesus during the persecution under Decius 
(a.d. 249-251), fell asleep, and did not awake for two or three hundred 
years ; in the meantime Christianity had become established. 

164 21. Dr. [Lawson]. " In former editions of this work I created 
him a doctor ; my object being to evade too close an approach to the 



440 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

realities of the case, and consequently to personalities," etc. — Confes- 
sions, Masson's Ed., Vol. Ill, p. 249. 

164 32. **With Providence my guide." Cf. Milton, Paradise Lost, 
last four lines : 

" The world was all before them, where to choose 
Their place of rest, and Providence their guide : 
They hand in hand with wand'ring steps and slow, 
Through Eden took their solitary way." 

165 5. On other personal accounts. For the sake of seeing Words- 
worth. Cf. p. 95, and note 95 16; also p. 106. 

165 6. I bent my steps towards North Wales. Not at once. Cf 
Introduction, p. xxi. 

165 28. "Not to know them, argues one's self unknown." Cf 
Milton, Paradise Lost, Book IV, lines 830-831 : 

" Not to know me argues 5'^ourselves unknoA\Ti, 
The lowest of your throng." 

167 7. High road to the Head. To Holyhead, probably, whence 
travellers would take ship for Ireland, or the Isle of Man. 

167 22. A harsh and contemptuous expression, etc. "I was 
wrong if I said anything in my anger," adds De Quincey in his enlarged 
Confessions, " that was disparaging or sceptical as to the bishop's intel- 
lectual pretensions; which were not only very sound, but very appro- 
priate to the particular stations which he filled. For the Bishop of 
Bangor (at that time Dr. Cleaver) was also the head of Brasenose, 
Oxford — which college was indebted to him for its leadership at that 
era in scholarship and discipline. In this academic character I learned 
afterwards that he might be called almost a reformer, — a wise, tem- 
perate, and successful reformer; and, as a scholar, I saw many years 
later that he had received the laudatory notice of Porson [the famous 
Greek scholar]." — Works, Masson's Ed., Vol. Ill, pp. 323-324. 

168 11. In a fortnight I was reduced to short allowance. There 
seems to be no doubt that De Quincey deliberately cut loose from his 
guardians at this time (so that he could receive no more money), even 
before he determined to go to London {cf Masson's Ed., Vol. Ill, 
p. 338). He was afraid, says Japp in the latest life of De Quincey, 
of being caught and sent back to his guardians. Cf Hogg, De Quincey 
and his Friends, p. 34, and Confessions, p. 180. 

170 13. *' Dym Sassenach." De Quincey gives us here, appar- 
ently, a very inaccurate version of the Welsh phrase, Dim Seisnaeg 



NOTES 



441 



I 



(Seisonaeg, Seisotieg, or Seisneg), " No English," which the man no doubt 
used. Sassenach, I am told, is somewhat nearer the Gaelic or Irish 
form than it is the Welsh ; but the spelling dym is not proper to either 
language. Seisnaeg is the Welsh corruption of the Teutonic Seaxe, 
Seaxna, '* Saxons," the name applied by the conquered Britons to all 
the invading Germanic tribes. 

170 25. Mr. Shelley is right in his notions about old age, etc. 
This passage was omitted when, at an advanced age, De Quincey 
made his enlarged edition of the Confessions. He refers, no doubt, to 
Shelley's Revolt of Islam, Canto II, stanza t^t^ : 

" New lore was this — old age, with its gray hair, 

And wrinkled legends of unworthy things, 
And icy sneers, is nought : it cannot dare 

To burst the chains which life forever flings 

On the entangled soul's aspiring wings. 
So is it cold and cruel, and is made 

The careless slave of that dark power which brings 
Evil, like blight, on man, who, still betrayed. 
Laughs o'er the grave in which his living hopes are laid." 

170 29. Means which I must omit, etc. De Quincey borrowed 
twelve guineas from two Oswestry lawyers, whom he had met in the 
Snowdon district. A fine passage in the enlarged Confessions gives an 
account of De Quincey's journey: **a favourable example," as Dr. 
Garnett remarks, " of that power of magnifying and dignifying ordinary 
things, and recounting trivial incidents with majestic circumlocution, 
which have made two hundred and seventy-five pages of small type 
out of two short magazine papers." Cf Works, Masson's Ed., Vol. Ill, 
p. 339, and pp. 343-348- 

171 20. The same person to whose breakfast-table I had access 
allowed me to sleep in a large unoccupied house. On his arrival in 
London, De Quincey betook himself at once to a money-lender, Dell. 
Dell referred him to Mr. Brunell or Brown, whose ofifice was in this house, 
which, as De Quincey tells us (Japp, De Quincey Memorials, Vol. II, 
p. 270), " stands in Greek Street, on the west, and is the house on that 
side nearest to Soho Square, but without looking into the square." In 
the enlarged Confessions De Quincey describes both this house and its 
master thus : " The house was not in itself, supposing that its face had 
been washed now and then, at all disrespectable. But it wore an unhappy 
countenance of gloom and unsocial fretfulness, due in reality to the 
long neglect of painting, cleansing, and in some instances of repairing." 



442 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

As to the chief tenant : " From the expression of his face, but much more 
from the contradictory and self-counteracting play of his features, you 
gathered in a moment that he was a man who had much to conceal, 
and much, perhaps, that he would gladly forget. His eye expressed 
wariness against surprise, and passed in a moment into irrepressible 
glances of suspicion and alarm. No smile that ever his face naturally 
assumed but was pulled short up by some freezing counteraction, or was 
chased by some close-following expression of sadness. One feature 
there was of relenting goodness and nobleness in Mr. Brunell's char- 
acter, to which it was that subsequently I myself was most profoundly 
indebted for an asylum that saved my life. He had the deepest, the 
most liberal, and unaffected love of knowledge, but, above all, of that 
specific knowledge which we call literature. His own stormy (and no 
doubt oftentimes disgraceful) career in life, that had entangled him in 
perpetual feuds with his fellow-men, he ascribed, with bitter impre- 
cations, to the sudden interruption of his studies consequent upon 
his father's violent death, and to the necessity which threw him, at a 
boyish age, upon a professional life in the lower branches of the law — 
threw him, therefore, upon daily temptations, by surrounding him with 
opportunities for taking advantages not strictly honourable, before he 
had formed any fixed principles at all. From the very first, Mr. Brunell 
had entered zealously into such conversations with myself as either 
gave openings for reviving his own delightful remembrances of classic 
authors, or brought up sometimes doubts for solution, sometimes 
perplexities and cases of intricate construction for illustration and 
disentanglement." — Works, Masson's Ed., Vol. Ill, pp. 350-351 ; 
Riverside Ed., Vol. I, pp. 430-432. 

173 3. Improving on the plan of Cromwell, every night he slept 
in a different quarter of London. " Clarendon relates that after 
the dissolution of his last Parliament, Cromwell 'became more appre- 
hensive of danger to his own person' than formerly; that he wore 
armour under his clothes, preserved the utmost secrecy with regard to 
his movements, was difficult of access, and ' rarely lodged two nights 
together in one chamber, but had many furnished and prepared ; to 
which his own key conveyed him and those he would have with him, 
when he had a mind to go to bed ' {History of the Rebellion, etc., Book 
XV). Of later historians of credit, Lingard, naturally no advocate 
for Oliver, repeats these stories, and even Lingard remarks in a foot- 
note that Clarendon's ' testimony can prove nothing more than that 
such reports were current, and obtained credit among the Royalists.' 
From Carlyle's Letters and Speeches of Oliver Cromwell, Vol. V, we 



NOTES 



443 



I 



gather, from trustworthy sources cited, that Cromwell took necessary 
precautions against the Royalist assassins and levelling fanatics who 
threatened his life, but that his bearing during the time Clarendon 
refers to was very different from that described on mere hearsay by the 
Royalist historian. In fact, Cromwell throughout treated the various 
plots — and they were many — against himself with considerable indif- 
ference; 'little fiddling things,' he termed them." — Hunter. 

173 31. Whether this child, etc. Dr. Garnett suggests that Dickens 
must have had this whole situation in mind when he drew the Mar- 
chioness and Sally Brass in Old Curiosity Shop. 

174 3. The dismal Tartarus. In Homer and earlier Greek mythol- 
ogy, Tartarus was a deep, dark abyss, as far below Hades as earth is 
below Heaven. In later poets it came to be the place of punishment 
for the wicked, and often merely the lower world ; in which sense 
apparently De Quincey uses it here. 

174 29. "Cycle and epicycle, orb in orb." Cf. Paradise Lost, 
Book VIII, lines 82-84 : 

" How gird the sphere 
With centric and eccentric scribbl'd o'er, 
Cycle and epicycle, orb in orb," 

175 4. As Dr. Johnson has recorded, etc. See Mrs. Piozzi's Anec- 
dotes of the late Samuel Johtison, LL.D., during the last twenty years of 
his life, London, 1786, pp. 102-103: "To make himself some amends 
indeed, he took his chocolate liberally, pouring in large quantities of 
cream, or even melted butter; and was so fond of fruit, that though he 
usually eat seven or eight large peaches of a morning before breakfast 
began, and treated them with proportionate attention after dinner 
again, yet I have heard him protest that he never had quite as much as 
he wished of wall-fruit, except once in his life, and that was when we 
were all together at Ombersley, the seat of my Lord Sandys." 

175 11. "The world was all before us." Cf Paradise Lost, 
Book XII, lines 646-647 : 

" The world was all before them, where to choose 
Their place of rest, and Providence their guide." 

176 13. "Sine Cerere," etc. Sine Cerere et Baccho friget Venus, 
i.e., " without food and wine love grows cold." See Terence, Eunuchus, 
Act iv, sc. 5, line 6. 

176 20. More Socratico. After the manner of Socrates. Socrates, 
the great Greek philosopher (470-399 B.C.) was accustomed to pass 



444 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

most of his time in public, wherever men were gathered in greatest 
number. In philosophical investigation he was wont by proposing a 
series of questions to lead a pupil from some evident truth to the con- 
clusion he desired to attain. In this way the most valuable moral 
instruction (which Socrates set before all other) was imparted in the 
guise of agreeable conversation. This is the " Socratic method." 

179 16. To haunt — to way-lay. Cf. Wordsworth, She was a 
Phantom of Delight, line lo: 

" To haunt, to startle, and way-lay." 

179 23. "Too deep for tears." Cf. Wordsworth, Intimations of 
Immortality, last line. 

180 13. His late majesty. George III, who had lately died (1S20) 
when De Quincey wrote. 

180 29. Soliciting. That is, " acting as solicitor or advocate for." 
Cf. De Quincey's Revolt of the Tartars (1837): "By way of soliciting 
his cause more effectually" (Riverside Ed., Vol. XII, p. 7; Masson's 

Ed., Vol. VII, p. zn)- 

182 8. A Jew named D[ell]. "At this period (autumn of 1856), 
when thirty-five years have elapsed since the first publication of these 
memoirs, reasons of delicacy can no longer claim respect for concealing 
the Jew's name, or at least the name which he adopted in his dealings 
with the Gentiles. I say, therefore, without scruple, that the name was 
Dell : and some years later it was one of the names that came before 
the House of Commons in connexion with something or other (I have 
long since forgotten what) growing out of the parliameHtary movement 
against the Duke of York, in reference to Mrs. Clark, &c. Like all 
the other Jews with whom I have had negotiations, he was frank and 
honourable in his mode of conducting business. What he promised he 
performed ; and, if his terms were high, as naturally they could not but 
be, to cover his risks, he avowed them from the first." — De Quincey's 
additional note, enlarged Confessions, Masson's Ed., Vol. Ill, pp. 364- 

365- 

183 24. I had also some from the Marquess of [Sligo]. Some of 
these letters may be read in Japp, De Quincey Memorials, Chap. IV. The 
third Earl of Altamont was created Marquis of Sligo, Dec. 29, 1800. His 
son, Lord Westport, De Quincey's young friend, then became by cour- 
tesy Earl of Altamont. The latter's mother was Lady Louisa Howe, 
daughter of the famous admiral, Earl Howe. 

188 9. A thought . . . prettily expressed by a Roman poet. In 
his account of his experiences in Wales in the enlarged Confessions, 



NOTES 



445 



I 



De Quincey writes (Masson's Ed., Vol. Ill, p. 330) : " Against Thugs I 
had Juvenal's license to be careless in the emptiness of my pockets 
{cantabit vacuus coram latrone viator),^'' but adds this footnote : " I am 
afraid, though many a year has passed since last I read Juvenal, that the 
true classical sense of vacuus is careless, clear from all burden of anxiety, 
so that vacuitas will be the result of immunity from robbery. But suffer 
me to understand it in the sense oi free from the burden of property ; in 
which sense vacuitas would be the cause of such immunity." In the 
sense desired by De Quincey, and to which there seems to be no objec- 
tion, the line {Satires, X, line 22) means: "An empty-pocketed tramp 
will sing in the face of a robber." 

188 13. A murder committed on or near Hounslow Heath. A note 
in the enlarged Confessions testifies to De Quincey's remarkable interest 
in murders {cf. note 340 2 on Murder Considered as one of the Fine 
Arts : " Two men, Hollo way and Haggerty, were long afterwards con- 
victed, upon very questionable evidence, as the perpetrators of this 
murder. The main testimony against them was that of a Newgate 
turnkey, who had imperfectly overheard a conversation between the 
two men. The current impression was that of great dissatisfaction with 
the evidence ; and this impression was strengthened by the pamphlet 
of an acute lawyer, exposing the unsoundness and incoherency of the 
statements relied upon by the court. They were executed, however, in 
the teeth of all opposition. And, as it happened that an enormous 
WTeck of life occurred at the execution (not fewer, I believe, than sixty 
persons having been trampled under foot by the unusual pressure of 
some brewers' draymen forcing their way with linked arms to the 
space below the drop), this tragedy was regarded for many years by a 
section of the London mob as a providential judgment upon the passive 
metropolis." — Works, Masson's Ed., Vol. Ill, p. 370. Dr. Garnett 
adds the following: "The execution took place on February 23, 1807. 
The ' acute lawyer ' was James Harmer, afterwards Alderman, and well 
known as proprietor of the ' Weekly Dispatch.' Nothing is said in 
Mr. Harmer's pamphlet of any conversation between Holloway and 
Haggerty having been overheard by a turnkey. The chief evidence 
against them was that of a man named Hanfield, who professed to have 
been an accomplice, but who was suspected of having falsely accused 
them to get himself liberated from the hulks." 

188 24. ''Lord of my learning and no land beside." Cf. Shak- 
s^&re, Aln^fokn, Act \,BC. i, line 137 (said of Faulconbridge) : 

" Lord of thy presence and no land beside." 



446 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

189 9. " To slacken virtue," etc. From Paradise Regained, 
Book II, lines 455-456; but tempt should be p7-ompt. 

190 9. "Ibi omnis effusus labor!" From Virgil, Georgics, IV, 
491-492 (of Orpheus): "There was all his labor lost!" 

190 13. The Earl of D[esart]. "I had known Lord Desart, the 
eldest son of a very large family, some years earlier, when bearing the 
title of Lord Castlecuffe. Cuffe was the family name; and I believe 
that they traced their descent to a person of some historic interest — 
viz. that Cuffe who was secretary to the unhappy Earl of Essex during 
his treasonable emeute against the government of Queen Elizabeth." — 
De Quincey's note to enlarged Confessions, Masson's Ed., Vol. Ill, 
p. 372. Henry Cuffe, for some time lecturer at Merton College, 
Oxford, was tried and executed in 1601. 

190 26. Anonymously, an author. Cf. Introduction, p. xvi. 

190 34. Her letters. Several of Mrs. de Quincey's letters are to be 
found in Page's (Japp's) Life of De Quincey, and more in Japp's 
De Quincey Metnorials ; they exhibit a great deal of administrative 
ability joined with an uncommon tenacity of opinion. 

191 4. Lady M. W. Montague. Lady Mary Wortley Montagu 
( 1 689-1 762) was the eldest daughter of the Earl of Kingston. She 
spent several years in Constantinople with her husband ; after her 
return she was the object of much admiration, especially from Pope; a 
quarrel with him made her the object of bitter attacks (as " Sappho," 
in the Dunciad, etc.). She wrote some poems, but her literary fame 
rests upon her Letters, published in 1763. Cf note 67 3. 

191 19. I remembered the story about Otway. Thomas Otway 
(1652-85) wrote a number of tragedies in the classical style ; the 
best is Venice Preserved (1682), to which De Quincey refers in the 
beginning of the Revolt of the Tartars. The story here in his mind 
first appeared in the Lives of the Poets (ascribed to Theophilus Cibber, 
1753), Vol. II, p. 335. To avoid the importunity of creditors, we are 
told, Otway had retired in his last days to a public house on Tower 
Hill. But, adds the chronicler, it is reported that, after suffering the 
torments of starvation, the dramatist begged a shilling of a gentleman 
in a neighboring coffee-house on April 14, 1685. The gentleman gave 
him a guinea, whereupon Otway bought a roll, and was choked by the 
first mouthful. The authenticity of this tale is extremely doubtful. 

193 3. And unpropitious as those of a Saracen's head. The Sara- 
cen's head, horribly carved, was a frequent tavern sign. Cf De Quincey's 
Works, Masson's Ed., Vol. II, p. 350 ; Riverside Ed., Vol. Ill, pp. 469- 
470: "Being a very large woman, and, moreover, a masculine woman. 



NOTES 447 

with a bronzed complexion, and always choosing to wear, at night, a 
turban, round hair that was as black as the * Moors of Malabar,' she 
presented an exact likeness of a wSaracen's Head, as painted over 
inn-doors." 

193 19. A remote part of England. De Quincey went to Liverpool, 
to his friend Mrs. Best, where he remained while his guardians debated 
his future. See Japp, De Quincey Memorials, Vol. I, p. 92. 

194 ];3. An address to in shire. To the Priory in 

Chester. 

194 14. I have never heard a syllable. It was the work of the 
famous French poet, Alfred de Musset, to depict, in his recently 
recovered translation of the Confessions, a second meeting between the 
Opium-Eater and Anne. See Ciarnett, pp. 169-188, where the French 
of De Musset is given. 

195 4. The ruin they had begun. At this point closed the instal- 
ment of the Confessions in the London Magazine for September, 182 1, 
and the following note was appended : 

" [The remainder of this very interesting article will te given in the next 
number. — Ed.] " 

195 8. Thy never-ending terraces. A range of houses is often 
named as a " Terrace," in England and Scotland especially, while retain- 
ing the street name. This is the case in the western (residence) portion 
of Oxford Street. 

196 9. " That way I would fly for comfort " {for rest, more accu- 
rately, in 1856 edition). Cf Psalm Iv, 6 : 

" Oh that I had wings like a dove, for then would I fly away and te at rest." 

196 13. Second birth of my sufferings. Cf. Introduction, p. xxvi, 
and note 252 28. 

196 17. Orestes was the son, according to Greek legend, of Aga- 
memnon and Clytemnestra. He slew his mother and her paramour 
.^gisthus in vengeance for their murder of his father, and was then 
pursued by the Furies (called euphemistically " Eumenides, the well- 
wishers"). Cf. De Quincey's footnote. 

196, footnote. <f>i\ov vTrvq k.t.X. {v-kvt] should be v-kvov). From 
Euripides, Orestes, 211: 

" O sweet balm of sleep, cure of disease." 

197 10. "Sleep no more!" Cf. Shakspere, Macbeth, Act ii, sc. 2, 
line 35. 



448 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

197 19. I am again in London, etc. In August, 1821, when 
De Quincey was writing this for the London Magazine, he had already 
been three months away from his wife and children, whom he had left, 
as he says below, in that very cottage to which his desire had turned 
in the time of his vagrancy {cf. p. 196), from November, 1802, to 
March, 1803, when Wordsworth, the object of his youthful veneration, 
occupied it. 

197, footnote l. tjSv SovXcvfia. Euripides, Orestes, 221 : rb doiXevfi 
■^5i), "sweet service." Electra wipes off the "clotted foam" from her 
brother's mouth. 

197, footnote 2. dva| dvSpwv. A common Homeric appellative for 
Agamemnon. C/. Iliad, I, 172. 

197, footnote 3. on^a 06i<r* €i<r« TreirXwv. Cf. Euripides, Orestes, 280, 
But Paley says Porson's ^\i\xa, "face," should be Kpara, "head." 

199 16. " The stately Pantheon." In the time to which De Quincey 
refers, the Pantheon, in Oxford Street near Poland Street, was a great 
concert room or theatre ; before 1854 we find it used as a great bazaar ; 
and now it is a wine warehouse. In the enlarged Confessions De Quincey 
adds this note : "'Stately ': — It is but fair to say that Wordsworth meant 
to speak of the interior, which could very little be inferred from the 
mean, undistinguished outside, as seen presenting itself endways in 
Oxford Street." — Works, Masson's Ed., Vol. Ill, p. 380. The reference 
is to the following lines in the opening stanza of Wordsworth's T'ower 
of Music, describing a street fiddler in London : 

" Near the stately Pantheon you '11 meet with the same 
In the street that from Oxford hath borrowed its name." 

200 17. (}>ap)jLaKov virircvGcs. " Drug banishing sorrow." Cf Homer, 
Odyssey, IV, 220-221, where the reference is thought by many to be to 
opium. But cf p. 243, and note 243 24. 

200, footnote. Mr. Flat-man, etc. Thomas Flatman (1637-88) was 
a much better miniature painter than poet. He brought out, however, 
four editions of his Poems atid Songs, and in the last, dated 1686, he 
printed for the first time On the much lamented Death of our late 
Sovereign Lord King Charles II. of Blessed Memory. A Pindar i que 
Ode. De Quincey's quotation is a vague reminiscence of line 14, where 
the poet deplores the lack of a word (implying decease) 

" Appropriate to Crowned Heads, who never ought to Die " ; 

and line 25, where he adds that princes should 

" Never submit to Fate, but only Disappear." 



NOTES 



449 



201 4. " L' Allegro " and " II Penseroso " are the titles of Milton's 
well-known descriptive poems. V Allegro means " the cheerful man," and 
// Penseroso " the thoughtful man." 

201 24. Tuesday and Saturday, viz., the two days on which the 
Gazette is (or used to be) published (De Quincey's footnote, enlarged 
Co7tfessioiis). 

203 34. ''Ponderibus librata suis." "Held in a state of equilib- 
rium." Cf. Ovid, Metamorphoses, I, 13, and Cicero, Tusctilanae Dispu- 
tationes, V, 24. 

204 3. As some old gentleman says in Athenaeus, etc. De Quincey 
throws some doubt on this reference by omitting it in his enlarged edi- 
tion. Athenaeus, a Greek rhetorician and grammarian, produced about 
A.D. 200 his DeipnosophistcE, in which he gives a friend an account of 
a supposed banquet of scholars and wits. It is a storehouse of quota- 
tions, many of them from lost works. 

204, footnote. The brilliant author of ''Anastasius." Thomas 
Hope (1770-1831), " merchant prince. Oriental traveller," etc., published 
Anastasius, or Memoirs of a Greek, in 1819. The passage from this novel 
— which deserved a more enduring popularity — is given in full by 
Garnett, pp. 255-258. 

205 7. I happened to say to him. De Quincey adds here in the 
enlarged edition the following footnote : " This surgeon it was who first 
made me aware of the dangerous variability in opium as to strength 
under the shifting proportions of its combination with alien impurities. 
Naturally, as a man professionally alive to the danger of creating any 
artificial need of opium beyond what the anguish of his malady at any 
rate demanded, trembling every hour on behalf of his poor children, 
lest, by any indiscretion of his own, he should precipitate the crisis of 
his disorder, he saw the necessity of reducing the daily dose to a mini- 
mu?n. But to do this he must first obtain the means of measuring the 
quantities of opium ; not the apparent quantities as determined by 
weighing, but the virtual quantities after allowing for the alloy or vary- 
ing amounts of impurity. This, however, was a visionary problem. To 
allow for it was simply impossible. The problem, therefore, changed 
its character. Not to measure the impurities was the object ; for, whilst 
entangled with the operative and efficient parts of opium, they could 
not be measured. To separate and eliminate the impure (or inert) 
parts, this was now the object. And this was effected finally by a par- 
ticular mode of boiling the opium. That done, the residuum became 
equable in strength ; and the daily doses could be nicely adjusted. 
About 18 grains formed his daily ration for many years. This, upon 



45 o SELECTIONS FROM BE QUINCEY 

the common hospital equation, expresses i8 times 25 drops of lau- 
danum. But, since 25 is = iS'i, therefore 18 times one quarter of a 
hundred is = one quarter of 1800, and that, I suppose, is 450. So 
much this surgeon averaged upon each day for about twenty years. 
Then suddenly began a fiercer stage of the anguish from his disease. 
But then, also, the fight was finished, and the victory was won. All 
duties were fulfilled : his children prosperously launched in life ; and 
death, which to himself was becoming daily more necessary as a relief 
from torment, now fell injuriously upon nobody." — IForh', Masson's 
Ed., Vol. Ill, pp. 385-386. 

207 33. ''Next Friday, by the blessing of Heaven, I purpose," 
etc., is changed, in the enlarged edition, to " Next Monday, wind and 
weather permitting, I purpose," etc., and De Quincey adds this foot- 
note : " My authority was the late Sir George Beaumont [Wordsworth's 
friend], an old familiar acquaintance of the duke's. But such expres- 
sions are always liable to grievous misapplication. By ' the late ' duke 
Sir George meant that duke once so well known to the nation as the 
partisan friend of Fox, Burke, Sheridan, &c., at the era of the great 
French Revolution in 1789-93. Since Azs time, I believe there have been, 
three generations of ducal Howards : who are always interesting to the 
English nation : first, from the bloody historic traditions surrounding 
their great house ; secondly, from the fact of their being at the head of 
the British peerage." — Works, Masson's Ed., Vol. Ill, p. 388. 

208 9. Grassini sang at the Opera. Josephina Grassini (1773- 
1850), an Italian contralto, made her first appearance in 1794, and 
was the reigning London favorite at the opening of the century. Her 
Majesty's Theatre, or Opera House, where she sang, is on the corner 
of Haymarket and Pall Mall, and dates from 1705. It was burned 
down and rebuilt in 1789-90, enlarged in 1816-18, and the interior 
again burned in 1867. 

208 14. The most pleasant place ... for passing an evening. " I 
trust that my reader has not been so inattentive to the windings ©f my 
narrative as to fancy me speaking here of the Brown-Brunell and 
Pyment [Brunell's clerk] period. Naturally I had no money disposable 
at that period for the opera. I am speaking here of years stretching 
far beyond those boyish scenes — interludes in my Oxford life, or long 
after Oxford." — De Quixcey's note, Mas.son's Ed., Vol. Ill, p. 389. 

208 22. In some interlude. Apparently a vocal solo introduced 
between the acts of an opera or the parts of an orchestral program. 

208 24. As Andromache. The reference seems to be to a selection 
from Gretry's Ajidromaqjie, which was produced at Paris in 1780. A 



NOTES 



45 



20S 31. The fine extravaganza ... in " Twelfth Night." The 
opening speech of the play is meant : " If music be the food of love, 
play on," etc. Cf. -aX^o Merchant of Venice, Act v, sc. i. 

208 34. A passage in the " Religio Medici." This is worthy of 
a longer quotation : " For even that vulgar and Tavern-Musick, which 
makes one man merry, another mad, strikes in me a deep fit of devotion, 
and a profound contemplation of the First Composer. There is some- 
thing in it of Divinity more than the ear discovers : it is an Hieroglyphical 
and shadowed lesson of the whole World, and creatures of God; such 
a melody to the ear, as the whole World, well understood, would afford 
the understanding. In brief, it is a sensible fit of that harmony which 
intellectually sounds in the ears of God." — Part II, sec. 9. 

210 1. A pleasure such as that with which Weld the traveller, 
etc. " The women, on the contrary, speak with the utmost ease, and 
the language as pronounced by them appears as soft as the Italian. 
They have, without exception, the most delicate harmonious voices 1 
ever heard, and the most pleasing, gentle laugh that it is possible to 
conceive. I have oftentimes sat among a group of them for an hour 
or two together, merely for the pleasure of listening to their conversa- 
tion, on account of its wonderful softness and delicacy." — I. Weld, 
Jr., Travels throngh the States of N'orth Carolina, and the Provinces 
of Upper and Lower Canada during the years jyg^^, lygO, and ijgy 
(published 1799), pp. 411-412 ; 3d ed. (1800), Vol. II, p. 288. Garnett 
remarks that it is probably for the reason indicated by De Quincey 
that he has thought Finnish the most musical language he ever heard 
spoken. 

210 16. Marinus in his life of Proclus. Proclus (a.d. 412-485) 
was a celebrated Neoplatonist philosopher, and author of a large 
number of philosophical works, as well as of works on grammar and 
a set of arguments against Christianity. Marinus of Flavia Neapolis 
in Palestine was a philosopher and rhetorician, and a disciple of 
Proclus. The obscurity of his Vita Prodi is probably not greater 
than that produced by De Quincey in thus referring to an utterly 
unread work. 

213 9. The Cave of Trophonius. De Quincey evidently refers to 
the well-known legend that a visitor to the oracle in the cave of 
Trophonius never smiled again. Hence the Greek saying of a dejected 
man, " He has visited the cave of Trophonius." 

213 24. Behmenism. Jacob Bohme, or Behmen (1575-1624), a 
shoemaker of Gorhtz in German Silesia, acquired celebrity by some 
rather recondite speculations in the region of mysticism and theosophy. 



45 2 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

213 25. Sir H. Vane, the younger (1612-62) was one of the wisest 
and most disinterested of the Independent leaders in the controversy 
between the Parliament and Charles I. After the Restoration he had 
the personal engagement of Charles II for his safety, but, the Conven- 
tion Parliament being no longer in session, he was without shadow of 
equity tried, condemned, and executed. At twenty-four Vane had been 
governor of Massachusetts, where he remained several years. Cf. Mil- 
ton's Sonnet To Sir He^ny Vane the Younger (1652) and Wordsworth's 
Sonnet, Great Men have beeti atnong tts. Vane's tracts on politics and 
religion are of great interest, but he holds no place in the history of 
philosophy, strictly so called. 

214 12. Oh ! just, subtle, and mighty opium ! This whole passage 
is doubtless suggested, as Professor Winchester points out, by the sub- 
lime apostrophe to Death with which Walter Raleigh closes his History 
of the World : " O, eloquent, just, and mighty Death ! whom none could 
advise, thou hast perswaded ; what none have dared, thou hast done ; 
and whom all the world flattered, thou only hast cast out of the world 
and despised : thou hast drawn together all the far stretched greatness, 
all the pride, cruelty, and ambition of man, and covered it all over with 
these two narrow words. Hie jacetr 

214 14. "The pangs that tempt the spirit to rebel." From 
Wordsworth's White Doe of Rylstone, Dedication: 

" And griefs whose aery motion comes not near 
The pangs that tempt the Spirit to rebel." 

214 20. "Wrongs unredressed and insults unavenged." From 
Wordsworth's Excursion, Book III, first part : 

" Not alone 
Dread of the persecuting sword, remorse, 
Wrongs unredressed, or insults unavenged, 
And unavengeable, defeated pride, ..." 

Quoted also in De Quincey's Modern Greece, Riverside Ed., Vol. XII, 
p. 352, Masson's Ed., Vol. VII, p. 340. 

214 27. Beyond the splendour of Babylon and Hekatompylos. 
Under King Nebuchadnezzar (604-561) the capital of Babylonia became 
a huge and splendid metropolis. The palace, called by Nebuchadnezzar 
" the Admiration of Mankind," was of magnificent extent, and the Hang- 
ing Gardens, within the palace precincts, were reckoned one of the seven 
wonders of the world. Hekatompylos, " i.e. the hundred-gated (from 
cKardv, hekaton, a hundred, and irvKt], pyle, a gate)," adds De Quincey 



NOTES 



453 



in a footnote to enlarged Co?tfessions. " This epithet of hundred- 
gated was applied to the Egyptian Thebes in contradistinction to the 
eTrTdirvXos {heptdpylos, or seven-gated) which designated the Grecian 
Thebes, within one day's journey of Athens." Thebes, part of which is 
now covered by Luxor, was the capital of Egypt, and its remains of 
temples and tombs are the most imposing and interesting relics of 
ancient Egyptian civilization. 

214 28. " From the anarchy of dreaming sleep." From Words- 
worth's Excursion, Book IV, near the beginning : 

'' Who from the anarchy of dreaming sleep, 
Or from its death-like void, with punctual care, 
And touch as gentle as the morning light, 
Restor'st us, daily, to the powers of sense 
And reason's stedfast rule — ..." 

215 13. The Bodleian. The great library of Oxford University (the 
various colleges have also their own libraries), and in Great Britain 
second only to the library of the British Museum. It was formally 
named after Sir Thomas Bodley in 1604, having been reestablished by 
him in 1 597-1 602. De Quincey was a more or less regular student at 
Oxford from 1800 to 1808. 

21 6 JO. In the depth of mountains. Cf. description of Dove Cot- 
tage, Grasmere, p. 226. 

216 14. Kant, Fichte, Schelling, etc. De Quincey was one of the 
chief followers of Coleridge in the latter's effort to make the German 
transcendental philosophy, which dates from Immanuel Kant's Critique 
of Pure Reason (1781), at home in England. Some of De Quincey's 
best biographical writings concern Kant, and, in his own mind, his 
greatest distinction should have been as a philosopher. Cf. p. 229. 

216 18. A single female servant. For an account of the misdoings 
attributed by De Quincey to this woman, "a foolish, selfish, and igno- 
rant old maid," see Riverside Ed., Vol. Ill, pp. 610 et seq. ; Masson's 
Ed., Vol. Ill, pp. 200 et seq. 

216 18. Honi soit qui mal y pense. " Shame to him who thinks 
evil of it." The motto of the Order of the Garter, concerning which 
see pp. 58-59 and note 58 23. 

216 31. I am X. Y. Z., etc. These initials were De Quincey's 
usual signature to his articles in the Lo7idon Magazine. An article on 
John Paul Richter, in December, 182 1, was signed Grasmeriensis 
Teittonizans. 

216 .39. Gustos Rotulorum. " In England, the keeper of the rolls 



454 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCEY 

or records (of the session of court) ; the chief civil officer of a county." 
— Century Dictionary . 

216 34. " The rainy Sunday," etc. Cf. p. 199. 

217 15. Medical advice from " Anastasius." Cf. p. 204 and note. 
217 18. Dr. Buchan. Cf. p. 202, footnote. 

217 28. Between every indulgence. It is interesting to see this 
troublesome locution cropping out in so careful a writer as De Quincey. 

217 34. A very melancholy event. The death of little Catherine 
Wordsworth, a great favorite of De Quincey, is thus referred to ; it 
took place June 4, 181 2, while De Quincey was on a visit to London. 
Cf. his account in Riverside Ed., Vol. Ill, pp. 578 et seq.\ Masson's 
Ed., Vol. II, pp. 440-445 : "Never, perhaps, from the foundations of 
those mighty hills, was there so fierce a convulsion of grief as mastered 
my faculties on receiving that heart-shattering news," etc. Cf also 
note 248 29. 

218 5. A most appalling irritation of the stomach. Cf. references 
to this trouble, pp. 1 58, 172. As to the nature of this malady and its treat- 
ment by opium, see note ] 58 l. " De Quincey's apology," adds Garnett, 
" is further supported by the testimony of Berlioz," which runs in English 
thus : " My father for a long time suffered from an incurable disease of 
the stomach, which a hundred times brought him to the gates of the 
tomb. He almost ceased to eat. The steady use of opium in consid- 
erable doses, from day to day, alone revived for a day his exhausted 
powers. Several years ago, worn out by his horrible suffering, he took 
in one dose thirty-two grains of opium. ' But, I confess,' he said to me 
later in telling of his act, ' it was not to cure me.' This frightful dose of 
poison, instead of killing him, as he expected, dissipated almost at once 
his sufferings, and restored him for the time to health." " The ' frightful 
dose,' according to De Quincey's calculation," remarks Dr. Garnett, 
" would be equivalent to 800 drops, or 200 under the amount which he 
[p. 222] speaks of as a trifle." 

219 1. In the next edition, etc. The actual revised Confessions 
fairly fulfils this threat, by converting the two magazine articles into 
nearly 250 closely printed pages. 

219 28. " Sweet men," etc. The intention is evidently to quote 
from the Prologue to the Canterbury Tales, lines 221 et seq., of the 
Friar: 

" Ful swetely herde he confessioun. 
And plesaunt was his absolucioun ; 
He was an esy man to yeve penaunce," etc. 



NOTES 



455 



219, footnote. Followers of Zeno. Zeno, who died about 264 k.c, 
founded about 308 the Stoic sect, which took its name from the " Painted 
Porch " {^roh. UolklXtj) in the Agora at Athens, where the master taught. 
The Stoics held that men should be free from passion, and undisturbed 
by joy or grief, submitting themselves uncomplainingly to their fate. 
Such austere views are, of course, as far as possible removed from 
those of the Eudaemonist, who sought happiness as the end of life. 

220 21. No old gentleman, etc. C/. p. 204, footnote. 

220 28. Ramadan is the ninth month of the Mohammedan year; 
each day of that month is observed as a fast from dawn to sunset. 

221 27. Nvx0T]|jL€pov. "A night and a day." 

222 3. '' That moveth altogether, if it move at all." From Words- 
worth's Resohition and Ijidepeiidence : 

" Motionless as a cloud the old Man stood, 
That heareth not the loud winds when they call 
And moveth all together, if it move at all." 

222 8. I understood him, or fancied that I did. The abstruseness 
and involution of Kant's chief writings are proverbial. 

222 21. A Malay knocked at my door. This Malay has been thought 
by some to be fictitious, — a notion which De Quincey's daughters reject 
with indignation. See Saintsbury, Essays in English Literature, iy8o~ 
i860, p. 440, and Japp, De Quincey Memorials, Vol. I, pp. 41,51; Vol. II, 
p. 269. It is worth noting that De Quincey specifically rejects a similar 
notion in an article in the London Magazine for March, 1824. Discuss- 
ing a review of his Confessions in the Nezv Edinburgh Review, which 
lived from July, 1821, to April, 1823, he says : " As another point which, 
if left unnoticed, might affect something more important to myself than 
the credit of my taste or judgment, — let me inform my reviewer that, 
when he traces an incident which I have recorded most faithfully about 
a Malay to a tale of Mr. Hogg's [the Ettrick Shepherd is meant], he 
makes me indebted to a book which I never saw. In saying this I 
mean no disrespect to Mr. Hogg ; on the contrary, I am sorry that I 
have never seen it : for I have a great admiration for Mr. Hogg's 
genius, and have had the honour of his personal acquaintance for the 
last ten years." — M^orks, Masson's Ed., Vol. IX, p. 39, note 2. 

222 2.3. To a seaport. " Viz., Whitehaven, Workington, &c.," 
inserts De Quincey in the text of the 1856 edition; he appends there 
this explanation : " Between the seafaring populations on the coast of 
Lancashire and the corresponding populations on the coast of Cum- 
berland (such as Ravenglass, Whitehaven, Workington, Maryport, &c.) 



456 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

there was a slender current of interchange constantly going on, and 
especially in the days of press gangs — in part by sea, but in part also 
by land." — Works, Masson's Ed., Vol. Ill, p. 402. 

223 20. The beautiful English face of the girl. "This girl, 
Barbara LeAvthwaite, was already at that time a person of some poetic 
distinction, being (unconsciously to herself) the chief speaker in a little 
pastoral poem of Wordsworth's. That she was really beautiful, and 
not merely so described by me for the sake of improving the picturesque 
effect, the reader will judge from this line in the poem, written perhaps 
ten years earlier, when Barbara might be six years old : — 

* 'Twas little Barbara Lewthwaite, a child of beauty rare! ' 

This coming from William Wordsworth, both a fastidious judge and a 
truth-speaker of the severest literality, argues some real pretensions to 
beauty, or real at that time. But it is notorious that, in the anthol- 
ogies of earth through all her zones, o,ne flower beyond every other is 
liable to change, which flower is the countenance of woman. Whether 
in his fine stanzas upon ' Mutability,' where the most pathetic instances 
of this earthly doom are solemnly arrayed, Spenser has dwelt sufficiently 
upon this, the saddest of all, I do not remember." — De Quincey's 
note, enlarged Confessions. Cf. Works, Riverside Ed., Vol. I, pp. 437 
et seq. ; Masson's Ed., Vol. Ill, pp. 403, 460 et seq. But note the fol- 
lowing from Wordsworth's preface to the poem in question. The Pet 
Lamb (1800): "Barbara Lewthwaite, now living at Ambleside (1843), 
though much changed as to beauty, was one of two most lovely sisters. 
Almost the first words my poor brother John said, when he visited us 
for the first time at Grasmere, were, ' Were those two Angels that I 
have just seen ? ' and from his description I have no doubt they were 
those two sisters. . . . Barbara Lewthwaite was not in fact the child 
whom I had seen and overheard as described in the poem. I chose the 
name for reasons implied in the above; and will here add a caution 
against the use of names of living persons. Within a few months after 
the publication of this poem, I was much surprised, and more hurt, to 
find it in a child's school-book which, having been compiled by Lindley 
Murray, had come into use at Grasmere School where Barbara was a 
pupil ; and, alas ! I had the mortification of hearing that she was very 
vain of being thus distinguished : and, in after-life, she used to say 
that she remembered the incident and what I said to her upon the 
occasion." 

Spenser's Cantos of Mutabilitie, at the end of the Faerie Queene, do 
not touch upon the subject indicated by De Quincey. 



NOTES 



457 



223 3J. My knowledge of the Oriental tongues, etc. Cf. note 

12 4. 

224 2. Adelung's " Mithridates." A work on Oriental languages 
by J. C. Adelung (1732-1806), a German philologist. It should, 
perhaps, be remarked that De Quincey here names together languages 
belonging to entirely distinct families. 

226 1. A third, etc. He was also English, a surgeon at Brighton, 
De Quincey tells us in the enlarged edition. 

226 12. Let there be a cottage, standing in a valley. " The 
cottage and the valley concerned in this description were not imaginary: 
the valley was the lovely one, hi those days, of Grasmere ; and the 
cottage was occupied for more than twenty years by myself, as imme- 
diate successor, in the year 1809, to Wordsworth. Looking to the 
limitation here laid down — viz., in those days — the reader will inquire 
in what way Time can have affected the beauty of Grasmere. Do the 
Westmoreland valleys turn grey-headed ? O reader ! this is a painful 
memento for some of us ! Thirty years ago, a gang of Vandals (name-- 
less, I thank heaven, to me), for the sake of building a mail-coach 
road that never would be wanted, carried, at a cost of ;^30oo to the 
defrauded parish, a horrid causeway of sheer granite masonry, for 
three-quarters-of-a-mile, right through the loveliest succession of secret 
forest dells and sly recesses of the lake, margined by unrivalled ferns, 
amongst which was the Osniiinda regalis. This sequestered angle of 
Grasmere is described by Wordsworth, as it unveiled itself on a Sep- 
tember morning, in the exquisite poems on the " Naming of Places." 
From this also — viz. this spot of ground, and this magnificent crest 
(the Osmunda) — was suggested that unique line, the finest independent 
line through all the records of verse, 

' Or lady of the lake, 
Sole-sitting by the shores of old romance.' 

Rightly therefore did I introduce this limitation. The Grasmere 
before and after this outrage were two different vales." — De Quincey's 
footnote, enlarged Confessions, Masson's Ed., Vol. Ill, p. 406. Cf. note 
127 3. The poem here referred to is IV in the Poems on the Naming 
of Places ; "lake" in the extract was afterwards changed to "mere." 
De Quincey repeats his praise of this line, and regrets the change in 
it, in a footnote to the Essay on Shelley, Riverside Ed., Vol. VI, p. 604; 
Masson's Ed., Vol. XI, p. 370. 

227 6. " And at the doors and windows," etc. Cf. the actual lines 
in Thomson's poem, Cant# I, stanza 43 : 



458 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

" And oft began 
(So work'd the wizard) wintry storms to swell, 
As heaven and earth they would together mell : 
At doors and windows, threatening, seem'd to call 
The demons of the tempest, growling fell, 
Yet the least entrance found they none at all ; 
Whence sweeter grew our sleep, secure in massy hall." 

227 J 7. Mr. [Anti-Slavery Clarkson]. Cf. p. 133 and note 133 9. 

227 29. St. Thomas's day is the twenty-first of December. 

228 8. I would have joined Dr. Johnson. Professor Masson gives 
the following footnote: "Jonas Hanway, tourist, philanthropist, and 
author (17 12-1786), and said to have been 'the first man who ventured 
to walk the streets of London with an umbrella over his head,' was a 
vehement opponent of tea, and got into conflict with Dr. Johnson on 
that subject, as appears from the following passage in Boswell's Life 
of Johnson (Temple Ed., Vol. I, p. 304): — 'His defence of tea against 
Mr. Jonas Hanway's violent attack upon that elegant and popular 
beverage shows how very well a man of genius can write upon 
the slightest subject, when he writes, as the Italians say, con amore. 
I suppose no person ever enjoyed with more relish the influence of 
that fragrant leaf than Johnson. The quantities which he drank of it 
at all hours were so great that his nerves must have been uncommonly 
strong not to have been extremely relaxed by such an intemperate use 
of it. He assured me that he never felt the least inconvenience from 
it ; which is a proof that the fault of his constitution was rather a too 
great tension of fibres than the contrary. Mr. Hanway wrote an angry 
answer to Johnson's review of his Essay on Tea (1756); and Johnson, 
after a full and deliberate pause, made a reply to it: the only instance, 
I believe, in the whole course of his life, when he condescended to 
oppose anything that was written against him.' " Concerning Hanway, 
see Dobson's Eighteenth Century Vignettes, 1892. 

228 20. Contrived ''a double debt to pay." From Goldsmith's 
Deserted Village, lines 229-230 : 

" The chest contrived a double debt to pay, 
A bed by night, a chest of drawers by day." 

228 33. A parte ante, etc. " From the part before and from the 
part after," i.e., the teapot has always existed and is always to exist. 

229 4. But no, dear M [argaret] . As to De Quincey's wife, cf 
Introduction, p. xxv. 

229 11. " Little golden receptacle." Of', p. 204, footnote. 



NOTES 459 

229 17. ''Stately Pantheon." Cf. p. 199 and note 199 I6. 

229 21. German metaphysics. C/. p. 216 and note 216 14. 

230 3. I cannot fail ... to be a gainer. Cf. Woodhouse's descrip- 
tion of De Quincey, quoted in Introduction, p. xxviii. 

230 16. An Iliad of woes. Cf. the opening lines of Homer's Iliad : 

" Achilles' wrath, to Greece the direful spring 
Of woes unnumbered, heavenly Goddess sing." 

230 18. "As when," etc. The lines in Shelley's poem, Canto V, 
stanza 23, read : 

'• With hue like that when some," etc. 

232 31. Reading is an accomplishment of mine. Cf. Woodhouse's 

Conversations, Garnett, pp. 198-199 ; Hogg's De Quincey^ etc., pp. jd-^j : 
" It seems to me, from the manner in which the Opium-Eater recited a 
few lines occasionally which he had occasion to quote, that the reading 
upon which in his Confessions he piques himself would scarcely appear 
good to most people. He reads with too inward a voice ; he dwells 
much upon the long vowels (this he does in his conversation, which 
makes it resemble more a speech delivered in a debating society than 
the varitonous discourse usually held among friends) ; he ekes out 
particular syllables, has generally much appearance of intensity, and, in 
short, removes his tone and manner too much from the mode of common 
language. Hence I could not always catch the words in his quotations, 
and though one acquainted with the quotation beforehand would relish 
it the more from having an opportunity afforded of dwelling upon it, 
and from hearing the most made of those particular parts for the sake 
of which it is brought forward, yet general hearers would be left far 
behind, and in a state of wonder at the quoter." Mr. H. G. Bohn, who 
used to see De Quincey in his father's bookshop, "remembers that he 
always seemed to speak in a kind of whisper." Others have admired 
the low silvery tone of his voice in conversation. 

233 4. John Kemble . . . Mrs. Siddons. J. Kemble (1757-1823) 
was a famous English actor; Mrs. Siddons (1755-1831) was easily the 
most celebrated of English actresses. De Quincey tells us (Riverside 
Ed., Vol. Ill, pp. 584-594 ; Masson's Ed., Vol. II, pp. 446-454) of his 
meeting Mrs. Siddons at the house of Hannah More (see note 128 9) in 
181 3 or 1814, and of her brilliant readings from Shakspere. 

233 8. Overstep the modesty of nature. From Hamlet, Act iii, sc. 2. 
233 13. A young lady sometimes comes and drinks tea with us. 
Probably Dorothy Wordsworth is meant. 



460 SELECTIONS FROM BE QUINCEY 

233 17. Often indeed ke reads admirably. In an early MvS. of the 
Confessions this read " Blank verse he reads admirably," and it was 
followed by this interesting paragraph {^Posthumous Works, Vol. I, 
pp. 318-319) : " This, then, has been the extent of my reading for upwards 
of sixteen months. It frets me to enter those rooms of my cottage in 
which the books stand. In one of them, to which my little boy has 
access, he has found out a use for some of them. Somebody has given 
him a bow and arrows — God knows who, certainly not I, for I have 
not energy or ingenuity to invent a walking-stick — thus equipped for 
action, he rears up the largest of the folios that he can lift, places them 
on a tottering base, and then shoots until he brings down the enemy. 
He often presses me to join him ; and sometimes I consent, and we 
are both engaged together in these intellectual labours. We build up a 
pile, having for its base some slender modern metaphysician, ill able 
(poor man ! ) to sustain such a weight of philosophy. Upon this we 
place the Dutch quartos of Descartes and Spinoza; then a third story 
of Schoolmen in folio — the Master of Sentences, Suarez, Picus Miran- 
dula, and the Telemonian bulk of Thomas Aquinas; and when the 
whole architecture seems firm and compact, we finish our system of 
metaphysics by roofing the whole with Duval's enormous Aristotle. 
So far there is some pleasure — building up is something, but what is 
that to destroying ? Thus thinks, at least, my little companion, who 
now, with the wrath of the Pythian Apollo, assumes his bow and 
arrows; plants himself in the remotest corner of the room, and prepares 
his fatal shafts. The bow-string twangs, flights of arrows are in the 
air, but the Dutch impregnability of the Bergen-op-Zooms at the base 
receives the few which reach the mark, and they recoil without mischief 
done. Again the baffled archer collects his arrows, and again he takes 
his station. An arrow issues forth and takes effect on a weak side of 
Thomas. Symptoms of dissolution appear — the cohesion of the 
system is loosened — the Schoolmen begin to totter ; the Stagyrite 
trembles ; Philosophy rocks to its centre ; and, before it can be seen 
whether time will do anything to heal their wounds, another arrow is 
planted in the schism of their ontology ; the mighty structure heaves 
— reels — seems in suspense for one moment, and then, with one choral 
crash — to the frantic joy of the young Sagittary — lies subverted on 
the floor ! Kant and Aristotle, Nominalists and Realists, Doctors 
Seraphic or Irrefragable, what cares he? All are at his feet — the 
Irrefragable has been confuted by his arrows, the Seraphic has been 
found mortal, and the greatest philosopher and the least differ but 
according to the brief noise they have made." 



NOTES 461 

233 18. I read no book but one. That is, Ricardo's Political 
Economy. 

234 1. De emendatione, etc. " Of the amendment of the human 
mind." The fragment (1656) of similar title by the great pantheist sets 
forth the knowledge of truth as the highest good. 

234 26. The utter feebleness, etc. " These vehement expressions 
of disdain are almost wholly omitted from subsequent editions. In an 
article in the London Magazine for March, 1824, De Quincey thus 
apologizes for the introduction of Ricardo into the Opium-Eater : — 
' For this, as for some other passages, I was justly attacked by an able 
and liberal critic in the New Edinburgh Review [which lived only from 
July, 1821, to April, 1823], as for so many absurd irrelevancies : in that 
situation no doubt they were so ; and of this, in spite of the haste in 
which I had written the greater part of the book, I was fully aware. 
However, as they said no more than what was true, I was glad to take 
that, or any occasion which I could invent, for offering my public 
testimony of gratitude to Mr. Ricardo. The truth is, I thought that 
something might occur to intercept any more appropriate mode of 
conveying my homage to Mr. Ricardo's ear, which should else more 
naturally have been expressed in a direct work on political economy. 
This fear was at length realized — not in the way I had apprehended, 
viz., by my own death, but by Mr. Ricardo's. And now, therefore, I 
felt happy that, at whatever price of good taste, I had in some imperfect 
way made known my sense of his high pretensions — although, unfor- 
tunately, I had given him no means of judging whether my applause 
were of any value. For during the interval between September, 1821, 
and Mr. Ricardo's death in September, 1823, I had found no leisure 
for completing my work on political economy.' [ IVorks, Masson's Ed., 
Vol. IX, pp. 39-40.] The disinterested enthusiasm for intellectual 
beauty which led De Quincey, at some sacrifice of symmetry and pro- 
priety, to introduce Ricardo into the Opium-Eater, manifests one of the 
most prepossessing features of his own character." — Garnf.tt. Cf. 
156 29 and note. 

236 11. "Prolegomena," etc. This work, even in a fragmentary 
form, has not been preserved ; the same material may of course have 
been used in De Quincey's various writings on the subject. 

236 17. At a provincial press. Kendal is meant, no doubt, where 
De Quincey had edited the Westfnoreland Gazette in 181 8-1 9. 

236 28. I have thus described and illustrated. By this last word 
De Quincey endeavors adroitly to justify his digression on Ricardo, 
while at the same time he returns to his subject. 



462 SELECTIONS EKOM DE QUINCE Y 

238 17. Before (Edipus, etc. These names call up some of the 
great civilizations of the past, — of Greece, of Palestine, and of 
Egypt. 

239 32. I was once told by a near relative, etc. " The heroine of 
this remarkable case was a girl about nine years old ; and there can be 
little doubt that she looked down as far within the a-ater of death — 
that awful volcano — as any human being ever can have done that has 
lived to draw back and report her experience. Not less than ninety 
years did she survive this memorable escape ; and I may describe her 
as in all respects a woman of remarkable and interesting qualities. She 
enjoyed throughout her long life, as the reader will readily infer, serene 
and cloudless health; had a masculine understanding; reverenced truth 
not less than did the Evangelists; and led a life of saintly devotion, 
such as might have glorified * Ililarion or Paul^ — (The words in italics 
are Ariosto's.) — I mention these traits as characterising her in a mem- 
orable extent, that the reader may not suppose himself relying upon a 
dealer in exaggerations, upon a credulous enthusiast, or upon a careless 
wielder of language. Forty-five years had intervened between the first 
time and the last time of her telling me this anecdote, and not one iota 
had shifted its ground amongst the incidents, nor had any the most 
trivial of the circumstantiations suffered change. The scene of the 
accident was the least of valleys, — what the Greeks of old would have 
called an d[7«:os, and we English should properly call a dell. Human 
tenant it had none : even at noonday it was a solitude, and would often- 
times have been a silent solitude, but for the brawling of a brook — not 
broad, but occasionally deep — which ran along the base of the little hills. 
Into this brook, probably into one of its dangerous pools, the child fell : 
and, according to the ordinary chances, she could have had but a 
slender prospect indeed of any deliverance ; for, although a dwelling- 
house was close by, it was shut out from view by the undulations of 
the ground. How long the child lay in the water was probably never 
inquired earnestly until the answer had become irrecoverable : for a 
servant, to whose care the child was then confided, had a natural interest 
in suppressing the whole case. From the child's own account, it should 
seem that asphyxia must have announced its commencement. A process 
of struggle and deadly suffocation was passed through half consciously. 
This process terminated by a sudden blow apparently on or in the 
brain, after which there was no pain or conflict ; but in an instant suc- 
ceeded a dazzling rush of light ; immediately after which came the 
solemn apocalypse of the entire past life. Meantime, the child's disap- 
pearance in the water had happily been witnessed by a farmer who 



NOTES 463 

rented some fields in this little solitude, and by a rare accident was 
riding through them at the moment. Not being very well mounted, 
he was retarded by the hedges and other fences in making his way 
down to the water ; some time was thus lost ; but, once at the spot, he 
leaped in, booted and spurred, and succeeded in delivering one that must 
have been as nearly counted amongst the populations of the grave 
as perhaps the laws of the shadowy world can suffer to return ! " — 
De Quincey's note to enlarged Confessions, Masson's Ed., Vol. Ill, 
p. 435. Dr. Garnett informs us, on the authority of Mrs. Baird Smith, 
that De Quincey's mother was the relative meant. De Quincey's quo- 
tation above is from Ariosto's Orlando Furioso, VIII, 45 : 

" Such a call 
As e'er Hilarion had or holy Paul." 

240 9. Book of account, etc. 6/. Revelations, xx, 12. 

241 19. A certain day in August, 1642. " I think (but at the 
moment have no means of verifying my conjecture) that this day was 
the 24th of August. On or about that day Charles raised the royal 
standard at Nottingham ; which, ominously enough (considering the 
strength of such superstitions in the seventeenth century, and, amongst 
the generations of that century, more especially in this particular 
generation of the Parliamentary War), was blown down during the 
succeeding night. Let me remark, in passing, that no falsehood can 
virtually be greater or more malicious than that which imputes to 
Archbishop Laud a special or exceptional faith in such mute warnings." 
— De Quincey's note to enlarged Confessions, Masson's Ed., Vol. Ill, 
p. 438. " The King's standard, giving the signal for the English Civil 
War, was raised on the Castle Hill at Nottingham on the evening of 
Monday the 22d of August 1642, and is said to have been blown down 
by a violent wind that night, — though Rushworth's account discredits 
that legend. I do not understand the grounds of De Quincey's defence 
of Laud at this point against the imputation of superstitious belief in 
omens. Whether his faith in such ' mute warnings ' was ' special or 
exceptional,' in the sense of being stronger than was usual in his age, 
may admit of question ; but that he was tremulously sensitive to dreams, 
omens, &c., is as certain as records can make anything." — Masson. 

241 30. Paulus, or Marius. Lucius ^milius Paulus, surnamed 
Macedonicus (died 160 B.C.), and the still more famous Caius Marius 
(died 86 B.C.), are of course meant. 

241 31. The crimson tunic. " The signal which announced a day 
of battle." — De Quincey's note to enlarged Confessions. 



464 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

241 32. Alalagmos. " A word expressing collectively the gathering 
of the Roman war-cries — Aldla, Aldlay — De Quincey's note to 
enlarged Confessions. The word is Greek and from Greek oXaKi], 
"war cry." As Professor Kittredge points out to me, Pindar personi- 
fies a\(xKa. as the daughter of war. 

242 1. A set of plates by that artist [Piranesi], called his 
" Dreams." " Piranesi never published any plates under this title, 
but many of his architectural drawings, though professedly represent- 
ing actual edifices, are as visionary as Martin's views of Pandemonium. 
Charles Brockden Brown, after Hawthorne and Poe the most imagina- 
tive of American writers of fiction, was also fond of designing wholly 
ideal architecture in drawings of most elaborate execution." — Garnet r. 
Giovanni Battista Piranesi (died 1778) was an Italian engraver, whose 
fancy was especially seized by the idea of restoring in engravings the 
ruined architecture of Rome. 

242 28. From a great modern poet. " What poet } It was Words- 
worth ; and why did I not formally name him.? This throws alight 
backwards upon the strange history of Wordsworth's reputation. The 
year in which I wrote and published these Confessions was 182 1 ; and 
at that time the name of Wordsworth, though beginning to emerge 
from the dark cloud of scorn and contumely which had hitherto over- 
shadowed it, was yet most imperfectly established. Not until ten years 
later was his greatness cheerfully and generally acknowledged. I, 
therefore, as the very earliest (without one exception) of all who came 
forward, in the beginning of his career, to honour and welcome him, 
shrank with disgust from making any sentence of mine the occasion for 
an explosion of vulgar malice against him. But the grandeur of the 
passage here cited inevitably spoke for itself ; and he that would have 
been most scornful on hearing the name of the poet coupled with this 
epithet of ' great ' could not but find his malice intercepted, and himself 
cheated into cordial admiration, by the splendour of the verses." — 
De Quincey's note to Confessiofis, Masson's Ed., Vol. Ill, p. 439. 
Cf. p. 95 and note 95 16; also p. 106. The passage quoted is from 
the Excursion, Book II, near the end. 

243 19. Fuseli. John Henry P^useli (1741-1825) was a Swiss 
painter and art critic, most of whose active life was passed in 
England. 

243 2.-^. The dramatist Shadwell. Thomas Shadwell (1640-92) 
is most famous as Dryden's MacFlecknoe and Og {cf. Absalom and 
Achitophel, II) ; he had gained Dryden's enmity by satirizing him in 
the Medal of John Bayes. He succeeded Dryden as poet-laureate in 



NOTES 465 

1 688. Most modern critics agree that he was r.ot quite so black as 
Dryden painted him : 

" The rest to some faint meaning make pretense, 
But Shadwell never deviates into sense." — MacFlecknoe. 

243 24. Homer is . . . rightly reputed to have known the virtues of 
opium. " This idea is grounded on the passage in the Odyssey (Book IV) 
where Helen is represented as administering to Telemachus, in the 
house of Menelaus, a potion prepared from nepenthes^ which made him 
forget his sorrows. It was evidently some narcotic, but is generally 
thought to have been an extract of hemp, which Galen says was given 
in his time to guests at banquets as a promoter of hilarity and enjoy- 
ment. Hippocrates was acquainted with the use of opium in medicine, 
and frequently prescribed it." — Cooke, The Seven Sisters of Sleep, 
Chap. II. '* The Homeric nepe^ithes is the subject of a learned dis- 
quisition in Gronovius, torn, ii, by Petrus La Seine, who arrives at 
the extraordinary conclusion that it was aurum potabile [drinkable 
gold]." — Garnett. Cf. p. 200 and note 200 17. 

243 30. To use a metaphysical word, "objective." "This word, 
so nearly unintelligible in 1821, so intensely scholastic, and, conse- 
quently, when surrounded by familiar and vernacular words, so appar- 
ently pedantic, yet, on the other hand, so indispensable to accurate 
thinking, and to wide thinking, has since 1821 become too common 
to need any apology." — De Quincey's note to enlarged Confessions, 
Masson's Ed., Vol. Ill, p. 440. 

243 35. The last Lord Orford. Horace Walpole (1717-97), third 
son of Sir Robert Walpole, Prime Minister, was a famous wit and letter 
writer, as well as author of the celebrated novel of the romantic and 
supernatural type. The Castle of Otranto. 

246 8. I fled from the wrath of Brama, etc. The first three named 
compose the so-called Triad of the Hindu religion of Brahmanism. 
Brahma is the evolver of the universe, Vishnu its maintainer, and Siva 
its destroyer. Isis is the chief female deity of Egyptian mythology; 
Osiris, whose sister and female counterpart is Isis, is the creator and 
principle of good in that mythology. The ibis and the crocodile were 
sacred animals in Egyptian worship. 

247 20. The contemplation of death, etc. See p. 7 , where De Quincey 
refers to this passage, translates cceteris paribus into " other conditions 
remaining the same," and repeats the last of the three reasons given 
here with some additional discussion. Cf also the opening of the first 
section of the Dream-Fugue, p. 330. 



466 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

248 29. The grave of a child, etc. Catherine Wordsworth is meant. 
Cf. note 217 34. 

249 15. Shaded by Judean palms. The picture is suggested by 
Judea on the Roman coins. Cf. Works, Riverside Ed., Vol. 11, p. 56; 
Masson's Ed., Vol. I, p. 54. 

249 34. When we were both children. " In the original MS. this 
was succeeded by the following passage, which was immediately can- 
celled by the writer, and has never appeared in any edition of the 
Opium-Eater. I am enabled to insert it here by the exceeding kindness 
of Mr. H. A. Page [pseudonym of Dr. A. H. Japp] : — 

' This dream at first brought tears to one who had been long familiar only with 
groans: but afterwards it fluctuated and grew unsteady: the passions and the 
scenery changed countenance, and the whole was transposed into another key. 
Its variations, though interesting, I must omit. 

'At length I grew afraid to sleep, and I shrunk from it as from the most 
savage torture. Often I fought with my drowsiness, and kept it aloof by sitting 
up the whole night and following day. Sometimes I lay do\vn only in the day- 
time: and sought to charm away the phantoms by requesting my family to sit 
around me and to talk : hoping thus to derive an influence from what affected 
me externally into my internal world of shadows : but, far from this, I infected 
and stained as it were the whole of my waking experience with feelings derived 
from sleep. I seemed indeed to live and to converse even when awake with my 
visionary companions much more than with the realities of life. " Oh, X, what 
do you see ? dear X, what is it that you see ? " was the constant exclamation of 
M [argaret], by which I was awakened as soon as I had fallen asleep, though to 
me it seemed as if I had slept for years. My groans had, it seems, wakened 
her, and, from her account, they had commenced immediately on my falling 
asleep. 

' The following dream, as an impressive one to me, I shall close with : it 
grew up under the influence of that misery which I have described above as 
resulting from the almost paralytic incapacity to do anything towards com- 
pleting my intellectual labours, combined with a belief which at the time I 
reasonably entertained that I should soon be called on to quit forever this world 
and those for whom I still clung to it.' 

' As a final specimen,' etc., as printed, except that the words 'from 
1820' do not appear in the original MS." — Garnett, p. 263. 

250 3. The dream commenced, etc. This paragraph is worthy of 
especial attention : De Quincey did nothing better in what he calls 
impassioned prose ; indeed, there is, perhaps, nothing better. 

250 17. I, as is usual, etc. Hunter suggests a comparison of this 
with the passage in the Mail-Coach, beginning, " The situation here 
contemplated," p. 313. 



NOTES 467 

250 92. *' Deeper than ever plummet sounded." Cf. Shakspere, 
Tetnpest, Act v, sc. i, line 56. 

250 34. With a sigh, such as the caves of hell, etc. Cf. Paradise 
Lost, Book II, lines 746 et seq., especially 787-789: 

" I fled, and cri'd out, Death ; 
Hell trembl'd at the hideous name, and sigh'd 
From all her caves, and back resounded Death." 

The "incestuous mother" is Sin, mother of Death, and by him the 
mother of a pack of "yelling monsters." 

252 28. I triumphed. " I am indebted for the following valuable 
note to De Quincey's biographer, Mr, H. A. Page [pseudonym of 
Dr. A. H. Japp], who is probably better acquainted with his circum- 
stances than any but his very nearest relatives : — 

' Accusations have been repeatedly made of late years against De Quincey 
for liaving asserted that he had made a final escape from the thraldom of 
opium, when such was not the case. This charge has been raised by writers 
otherwise favourable to him, and who should have been better informed. The 
chief cause of the misunderstanding is easily discovered. It arose from the very 
inadequate manner in which De Quincey, then only a few years before his death, 
was able to fulfil the task of expanding the Confessions as they stood at first 
into a volume the size of the series which Mr. James Hogg had happily been 
successful in getting him to put together as the " Collected Works." The 
original version is consistent with itself in all essential points: the later and 
enlarged version hardly is. Unless in the case of a very attentive reader, 
who has clearly in his mind the circumstances under which it was done, and is 
able to distinguish as he reads between the original and the added matter, 
difficulties and questionings are sure to arise about several matters of fact. 
De Quincey dove-tailed matter here and there into the book without carefully 
revising and rewriting the original portions as he should have done. The 
result is that in the earlier portion of the book we find him speaking of himself 
as a person who has had upwards of fifty years' experience of opium, and still 
indulging in it to a moderate extent, whereas at the end he speaks of himself 
as having attained a complete escape. He repeats, with merely the change of 
" seventeen " into " eighteen," the passage in the first edition where he had said, 
" the moral of the narrative is addressed to the opium-eater, and therefore of 
necessity limited in its application. If he is taught to fear and tremble, enough 
has been effected. But he may say that the issue of my case is at least a proof 
that opium, after an eighteen years' use and an eight years' abuse of its powers, 
may still be renounced." If the moral of the " Confessions of an Opium-Eater " 
is dependent on the fact of his having attained a complete escape from the power 
of the drug, then the final Confessions can really boast no moral even of the 
most limited application, since De Quincey, though he greatly reduced his doses, 



468 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

took opium up to the end of his days, — a fact which he very ingenuously con- 
fesses over and over again. The truth is, that the moral which he allowed to 
remain tacked to the Confessions as enlarged in 1856 is, like too many other 
morals tacked to less real narratives of pain and sorrow, utterly out of place 
and misleading, and should have been cancelled altogether. What he wrote at 
the close of the Confessions of 182 1 was quite true of his condition at the time, 
but his after career presents a series of almost incredible fluctuations. We find 
him in 1855 giving express dates to four separate and signal prostrations under 
the influence of opium: the first in 1813-14; the second in 1817-18; the third in 
1823-24; and the fourth in the period between 1841 and 1844 in Edinburgh or 
Glasgow. The record of the first two we have in the original Confessions ; for 
the others we must refer to other documents. The struggle of 1843-44 was 
severe. He had again risen almost to his old excess in 1813-14; but by dint of 
daily exercise and resolution he somewhat suddenly reduced his dose to one 
hundred drops. " Effects so dreadful and utterly unconjectured by medical men 
succeeded, that I was glad to get back under shelter. Not the less I persisted, 
silently, surely descended the ladder, and suddenly found my mind as if whirled 
round on its true centre. It was as if a man had been in a whirlpool, carried 
violently by a headlong current, and before he could speak or think he was 
riding at anchor once more dull and untroubled as in days of infancy." In 
June, 1844, he succeeded in attaining a final comparative escape from opium, 
having brought his daily quantum down to six grains. " I would not say by 
any means," observes his daughter, " that he never exceeded this afterwards, but 
I am very sure he never much exceeded it." There are no more records of such 
struggles as those of 18 17-18, and of 1844, though in 1848 he made a bold 
attempt to abstain totally : the general result of which is to be found in Page's 
memoir, vol. i, p. 354. He persevered for sixty-one days, but was compelled to 
return to his moderate dose, from which he never afterwards departed, as life 
otherwise was found to be insupportable. He resumed it on his own deliberate 
judgment, as of two evils very much the least. And not only did he justify the 
moderate indulgence in his own case, but he formulated a kind of general doc- 
trine on the subject, which he thus summed up at p. 242 of the Confessions of 
1856: — " Nervous irritation is the secret desolation of human life, and for this 
there is probably no adequate controlling power but that of opium, taken daily 
under steady regulation." If moral the final Confessions must have, then the 
pressure of facts would seem to point to this as the true one, rather than to any 
'■ triumph " or total abstinence. " Once in the toils of opium, reduce your dose to 
the very minimum, and keep it so by careful regulation and outdoor exercise," 
seems really to be the terms in which the moral of De Quincey's life as opium- 
eater would express itself.' 

" It should be added, that the appendix to the original edition of the 
ConfessionSy in which De Quincey rather apologises for having con- 
veyed to the reader ' the impression that I had wholly renounced the 
use of opium,' is omitted in the enlarged edition. He may have 



NOTES 469 

thought that he was supplying its absence by describing his 'escape' as 
'a provisional stage, that paved the way subsequently for many milder 
stages, to which gradually my constitutional system accommodated 
itself.'" — Garnett, Cojifessions, pp. 264-268. 

253 1. Innocent sufferer. William Lithgow (i 582-1645 ?), a Scotch- 
man who travelled afoot through many parts of Europe, Asia, and 
Africa, was racked at Malaga in December, 1620. The Totall Discourse 
of the Rare Aduentures and pamfull Peregrinations of long nineteene 
Yeares, etc., appeared in 1632. 

253 24. Jeremy Taylor conjectures, etc. In the enlarged Confes- 
sions De Quincey alters the name to " Lord Bacon," and adds this note : 
" In all former editions I had ascribed this sentiment to Jeremy Taylor. 
On a close search, however, wishing to verify the quotation, it appeared 
that I had been mistaken. Something very like it occurs more than 
once in the bishop's voluminous writings : but the exact passage moving 
in my mind had evidently been this which follows, from Lord Bacon's 
'Essay on Death': — 'It is as natural to die as to be born; and to a 
little infant perhaps the one is as painful as the other.' " 

254 8. "With dreadful faces," etc. Paradise Lost, Book XII, 
line 644. 

254. Appendix. This appeared for the first time when the Con- 
fessions was published in book form in 1822. It was also published 
in the London Magazine for December, 1822, with the following intro- 
ductory paragraph : " The interest excited by the tw^o papers bearing 
this title, in our numbers for September and October, 1821, will have 
kept our promise of a Third Part fresh in the remembrance of our 
readers. That we are still unable to fulfill our engagement in its 
original meaning will, we are sure, be matter of regret to them as to 
ourselves, especially when they have perused the following affecting 
narrative. It was composed for the purpose of being appended to an 
edition of the Confessions in a separate volume, which is already before 
the public, and we have reprinted it entire, that our subscribers may 
be in possession of the whole of this extraordinary history." 

255 15. Fiat experimentum, etc. " Let experiment be made on a 
common (worthless) body." 

258 14. Thierry and Theodoret. Cf Thierry and Theodoret, Act v, 
sc. 2. 

258 25. "I nunc," etc. " Go now, and ponder with thyself 
melodious lines." Horace, Epistles, II, 2, 76. 

259 26. "Infandum renovare dolorem." "To renew (relate) the 
unspeakable grief." Virgil, ^Eneid, II, 3. 



47© SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE V 

262 20. Heautontimoroumenos. 'Eai;roi/-Ti/io/)ou/xe;/os, " self-torturer," 
the title of one of Terence's plays, 

262, footnote. " Reculer pour mieux sauter." "Go back to make 
a better leap." 

263 7. Is it for a Transcendental Philosopher, etc. C/". p. 216 and 
note 216 14. 

264 16. Si vivere perseverarent. Cf. Suetonius, Life of Caligula, 
38 : " Derisores vocabat, quod post nuncupationem vivere persevera- 
rent," etc. " He called [them] mockers, that after the announcement 
[that Caligula had been made joint heir with their children] persisted 
in living," etc. 

FROM THE "SUSPIRIA DE PROFUNDIS" 

The history of these remarkable pieces is unfortunately by no means 
clear; as we are not likely, however, to receive any further testimony 
on the subject, what information is now before us may be here sum- 
marized. In a note to Professor Lushington of Glasgow, evidently 
written in February, 1845, DeQuincey says : " Perhaps I told you, when 
you were last over at Lasswade, of the intention I had (and was then 
carrying into effect) to write another Ofium Confessions; or, if I did 
not tell you, it must have been only because I forbore to pester you too 
much with "my plans — especially whilst unfinished, and liable to de- 
rangements more than one. Now, however, this particular plan, after 
occupying me for seven months of severe labour, is accomplished. Last 
Friday I received from the printer a sheet and something more (of 
'Blackwood's Magazine'), containing the first part out of four. It 
bears for its title, 'Suspiria de Prof undis ; being a Sequel to the Con- 
fessions of an English Opium-Eater.' And the separate title of this 
first part is — ' The Afiliction of Childhood.' . . . The four parts, when 
published in Blackwood through March, April, May, June, and July, 
will be gathered into a volume without any delay, and introduced by a 
letter of some length to my three daughters." The paper to which 
De Quincey here refers was preceded in Blackwood for March, 1845, 
by an Introductory Notice on the subject of Dreaming, and was followed 
by several detached paragraphs of lyrical prose; in the number for 
April there were a few more pages, without sub-titles, purporting to be 
a continuation of Part I; in May nothing was added; in June the 
conclusion of Part I appeared in the shape of four pieces, entitled, 
respectively, The Palimpsest, Levana and Our Ladies of Sorrow, The 
Apparition of the Bracken, and Savannah-la-Mar. To the second of 



NOTES 



471 



these papers, Levana, De Quincey added this interesting, if somewhat 
baffling note : " The reader who wishes at all to understand the course 
of these Confessions ought not to pass over this dream-legend. There 
is no great wonder that a vision which occupied my waking thoughts 
in those years should reappear in my dreams. It was, in fact, a legend 
recurring in sleep, most of which I had myself silently written or 
sculptured in my daylight reveries. But its importance to the present 
Confessions is this, — that it rehearses or prefigures their course. This 
First Part belongs to Madonna. The Third belongs to the ' Mater 
Suspiriorum,' and will be entitled The Pariah Worlds. The Fourth, 
which terminates the work, belongs to the ' Mater Tenebrarum,' and 
will be entitled The Kingdom of Darkness. As to the Second, it is an 
interpolation requisite to the effect of the others, and will be explained 
in its proper place." In Blackzvood for July appeared the beginning of 
Part II, printed without subdivision and with no sub-titles. And there, 
without Warning, the series ended. In itself the note to Levana is not 
inconsistent with the statements made to Professor Lushington a few 
months before ; yet its vagueness seems to indicate that the plan which 
then was announced as accomplished gave way before long to a different 
scheme — larger, and perhaps not so well worked out. Such a devel- 
opment is not only quite to be expected of De Quincey; but it is 
particularly evidenced by the fact that he spread Part I through three 
numbers of the Magazine. But apparently there was to be yet a third 
stage in the history of the Suspiria. Dr. Japp has recently published a 
list, recovered from De Quincey's papers, of titles for 32 Suspiria [Japp, 
Posthumous Works of De Quincey, Vol. I, p. 4. A dagger is here placed 
after pieces formerly published, and an asterisk after those recovered 
by Dr. Japp, and printed by him in the above work. Vol. I, pp. 7-23. 
Several detached paragraphs for Suspiria are also given by Japp, 
pp. 24-28] as follows : 

(i) Dreaming.! (2) The Affliction of Childhood! and Dream 
Echoes.! (3) The English Mail-Coach.! (4) The Palimpsest of the 
Human Brain.! (5) Vision of Life.! (6) Memorial Suspiria.! 
(7) Levana and our Ladies of Sorrow.! (8) Solitude of Childhood.* 
(9) The Dark Interpreter.* (10) The Apparition of the Brocken.! 
(11) Savannah-la-Mar.! (12) The Dreadful Infant. (There was the 
glory of innocence made perfect; there was the dreadful beauty of 
infancy that had seen God.) (13) Foundering Ships. (14) The Arch- 
bishop and the Controller of Fire. {15) God that didst promise. 
(t6) Count the Leaves in Vallombrosa. (17) But if I submitted with 
Resignation, not the less I searched for the Unsearchable — sometimes 



472 > SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

ill Arab Deserts, sometimes in the Sea. (i8) That ran before us in 
Malice. (19) Morning of Execution. (20) Daughter of Lebanon.! 
(21) Kyrie Eleison. {22) The Princess that lost a Single Seed of 
Pomegranate.* (23) The Nursery in Arabian Deserts. (24) The 
Halcyon Calm and the Coffin. (25) Faces ! Angels' Faces ! (26) At 
that Word. (27) Oh, Apothanate ! that hatest Death, and cleansest 
from the Pollution of Sorrow. (28) Who is this Woman that for 
some Months has followed me up and down ? Her face I cannot see, 
for she keeps for ever behind me. (29) Who is this Woman that 
beckoneth me and warneth me from the Place where she is, and in whose 
Eyes is Woeful Remembrance .? I guess who she is.* (30) Cagot and 
Cressida. (31) Lethe and Anapaula. (32) Oh, sweep away, Angel, 
with Angelic Scorn, the Dogs that come with Curious Eyes to gaze. 

Of most intrinsic interest in this scheme is the testimony borne by it 
to the fact that the Stispiria had indeed their origin in dreams, and 
were, in fact, what De Quincey calls them, the " last Confessions " of an 
Opium-Eater. So far as the history of these pieces is concerned, this 
list apparently dates from the years 1845-49. It could hardly antedate 
the note to Levana, in which the division into parts, entirely unrecog- 
nized here, is made all-important. On the other hand, T/ie English 
Mail-Coach came out in 1849 as a separate piece, and in a form too 
extensive to allow it a place among the Suspiria, which in this list it 
holds. It seems clear that after the sudden close of the Blackwood 
series, De Quincey continued to work upon these Confessions ; the 
Mail-Coach was one of them, which, outgrowing the proper size for 
Suspiria, was thrown to the voracious magazines in 1849, ""* which year, 
it will be noted, De Quincey published nothing else. Now, however, in 
1853, began the publication of the Hogg collective edition, and The 
Affliction of Childhood, Dreatn Echoes, and The Apparition of the 
B roc ken were found useful to lend color and power to the Autobio- 
graphic Sketches. But the unprinted Suspiria were to suffer far more 
serious losses. In the preface to the 1856 Confessions De Quincey 
writes : " All along I had relied upon a crowning grace, which I had 
reserved for the final pages of this volume, in a succession of some 
twenty or twenty-five dreams and noon-day visions, which had arisen 
under the latter stages of opium influence. These have disappeared : 
some under circumstances which allow me a reasonable prospect of 
recovering them ; some unaccountably ; and some dishonourably. Five 
or six, I believe, were burned." The Daughter of Lebanon, saved from 
this " sudden conflagration," De Quincey appended to the Confessions. 
It is clear, therefore, that the project of the Suspiria was in no way 



NOTES 



473 



abandoned by Ue Quincey (though it may have been by Blackwood), and 
that he actually wrote — roughly at least — three-quarters of the pieces 
called for by Dr. Japp's list. Finally it may be remarked that, although 
De Quincey did not live to add any collection of Suspiria to the Hogg 
Edition, Messrs. Black in the sixteenth (supplementary) volume of their 
reissue were able to publish the remains of the Suspiria formerly 
printed in Blackwood, with important corrections from the author's 
hand. From this revised text these selections are taken. They are 
found in Works, Masson's Ed., Vol. XIII, pp. 359-369; Riverside Ed., 
Vol. I, pp. 237-246, 253-256. 

267 6. On the foundation. That is, on the endowment, holding 
free scholarships (in American phrase), which were probably provided 
for in the original grant to the college. 

269 5. She stood in Rama. Cf. Jeremiah, xxxi, 15 ; Matthew, ii, 18. 

269 33. All this winter of 1844-5 within the bedchamber of the 
Czar, etc. This reference is to the death, in August, 1844, of the 
Prmcess Alexandra, third daughter of the Czar Nicholas. She was 
nineteen years old. 

270 30. Norfolk Island, in the South Pacific, east of Australia, was 
for some time used by Great Britain as a penal settlement. The galleys 
are likewise employed by France for the punishment of criminals. 

271 19. Amongst the tents of Shem. Cf. Genesis, ix, 27. 

273. Savannah-la-mar. This name occurs on the map as that of 
a small coast town in Jamaica; in that island De Quincey's brother 
Richard (Pink) was lost during a hunting trip in the Blue Mountains. 
Etymologically Savannah, a "plain," is English for the Spanish Sabana, 
a " sheet," or " plain" ; la mar is of course Spanish for " the sea" ; cf. 
Sabana de la Mar, the name of a coast town of Santo Domingo. The 
name is, however, not only very melodious in itself, but also suggestive 
of the dream De Quincey wishes to relate, that of a city sunk, with all 
its towers standing, beneath the ocean, yet still visible in calm weather. 
The meaning attached to the vision by De Quincey is that the future is 
God's present, — that in that truth lies the explanation of his mysterious 
workings by shocks, as of earthquake, and by grief. 

274 11. Fata-Morgana revelation. Fata Morgana (Italian for 
" Morgana the fairy") is really the name of a sister of King Arthur in 
mediaeval legend, but the name is given commonly to a mirage seen in 
the Straits of Messina, superstitiously supposed to be caused by Morgana. 

274 .32. Clepsydra. The clepsydra, as the context indicates, was a 
device for measuring time by water, which was discharged from a vessel 
through a small aperture. 



474 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCEY 



THE ENGLISH MAIL-COACH 

"In October 1849 there appeared in Blackwood's Magazine an article 
entitled The English Mail-Coach, or the Glory of Motion. There was 
no intimation that it was to be continued ; but in December 1849 there 
followed in the same magazine an article in two sections, headed by 
a paragraph explaining that it was by the author of the previous article 
in the October number, and was to be taken in connexion with that 
article. One of the sections of this second article was entitled The 
Vision of Sudden Death, and the other Dream-Fugue on the above theme 
of Sudden Death. When De Quincey revised the papers in 1854 for 
republication in volume iv of the Collective Edition of his writings, he 
brought the whole under the one general title of The English Mail- 
Coach, dividing the text, as at present, into three sections or chapters, 
the first with the sub-title The Glory of Motion, the second with the 
sub-title The Vision of Sudden Death, and the third with the sub-title 
Dream-Fugue, founded on the preceding theme of Sudden Death. Great 
care was bestowed on the revision. Passages that had appeared in the 
magazine articles were omitted ; new sentences were inserted; and the 
language was retouched throughout." — Masson. Cf above, pp. 470- 
473, and as to the revision, Professor Dowden's article, " How De Quincey 
worked," Saticrday Review, Feb. 23, 1895. This selection is found in 
Works, Masson's Ed., Vol. XIII, pp. 270-327 ; Riverside Ed., Vol. I, 
PP- 517-582. 

277 6. He had married the daughter of a duke. " Mr. John Palmer, 
a native of Bath, and from about 1768 the energetic proprietor of the 
Theatre Royal in that city, had been led, by the wretched state in those 
days of the means of intercommunication between Bath and London, 
and his own consequent difficulties in arranging for a punctual succession 
of good actors at his theatre, to turn his attention to the improvement 
of the whole system of Post-Office conveyance, and of locomotive 
machinery generally, in the British Islands. The result was a scheme 
for superseding, on the great roads at least, the then existing system of 
sluggish and irregular stage-coaches, the property of private persons and 
companies, by a new system of government coaches, in connexion with 
the Post-Office, carrying the mails and also a regulated number of 
passengers, with clockwork precision, at a rate of comparative speed, 
which he hoped should ultimately be not less than ten miles an hour. 
The opposition to the scheme was, of course, enormous ; coach pro- 
prietors, innkeepers, the Post-Office officials themselves, were all against 



NOTES 



475 



Mr. Talmer; he was voted a crazy enthusiast and a public bore. Pitt, 
however, when the scheme was submitted to him, recognised its feasi- 
bility ; on the 8th of August 1784 the first mail-coach on Mr. Palmer's 
plan started from London at 8 o'clock in the morning and reached 
Bristol at 11 o'clock at night; and from that day the success of the 
new system was assured. — Mr. Palmer himself, having been appointed 
Surveyor and Comptroller-General of the Post-Office, took rank as an 
eminent and wealthy public man, M. P. for Bath and what not, and 
lived till 1818. De Quincey makes it one of his distinctions that he 
' had married the daughter of a duke,' and in a footnote to that para- 
graph he gives the lady's name as ' Lady Madehne Gordon.' From an 
old Debrett, however, I learn that Lady Madelina Gordon, second 
daughter of Alexander, fourth Duke of Gordon, was first married, on 
the 3d of April 1789, to Sir Robert Sinclair, Bart., and next, on the 
25th of November 1805, to Charles Palmer, of Lockley Park, Berks, Esq. 
If Debrett is right, her second husband was not John Palmer of Mail- 
Coach celebrity, and De Quincey is wrong." — Masson. 

277, footnote. Invention of the cross. Concerning the Inventio 
sanctae cruets, see Smith, Dictionary of Christian Antiquities, Vol. I, 

P- 503- 

278 4. National result. Cf De Quincey 's paper on Travelling, 
Works, Riverside Ed., Vol. II, especially pp. 313-314; Masson's Ed., 
Vol. I, especially pp. 270-271. 

279 13. The four terms of Michaelmas, Lent, Easter, and Act. 
These might be called respectively the autumn, winter, spring, and 
summer terms. Michaelmas, the feast of St. Michael and All Angels, 
is on September 29. Hilary and Trinity are other names for Lent 
term and Act term respectively. Act term is the last term of the 
academic year; its name is that originally given to a disputation for a 
Master's degree ; such disputations took place at the end of the year 
generally, and hence gave a name to the summer term. Although the 
rules concerning residence at Oxford are more stringent than in 
De Quincey's time, only eighteen weeks' residence is required during 
the year, six in Michaelmas, six in Lent, and six in Easter and Act. 

279 17. Going down. Cf. " Going down with victory," i.e., from 
London into the country. 

279 30. Posting-houses. Inns where relays of horses were fur- 
nished for coaches and carriages. Cf. De Quincey on Travelling, loc.cit. 

280 3. An old tradition . . . from the reign of Charles II. Then 
no one sat outside ; later, outside places were taken by servants, and 
were quite cheap. 



476 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

280 9. Attaint the foot. The word is used in its legal sense. The 
blood of one convicted of high treason is " attaint," and his depriva- 
tions extend to his descendants, unless Parliament remove the attainder. 

280 14. Pariahs. Cf. note 74 27. 

281 6. Objects not appearing, etc. Be non apparentibtcs et non 
existentibus eadem est lex, a Roman legal phrase. 

281 16. "Snobs." Apparently j-«c'<5 originally meant "shoemaker";* 
then, in university cant, a "townsman" as opposed to a "gownsman." 
Cf. Gradus ad Cantabrigiam (1824), quoted in Century Dictionary: 
" Snobs. — A term applied indiscriminately to all who have not the 
honour of being members of the university; but in a more particular 
manner to the ' profanum vulgus,' the tag-rag and bob-tail, who vegetate 
on the sedgy banks of Camus." This use is in De Quincey's mind. 
Later, in the strikes of that time, the workmen who accepted lower 
wages were called snobs ; those who held out for higher, nobs. 

283 33. Fo Fo . . . Fi Fi. " This paragraph is a caricature of a 
story told in Staunton's Account of the Earl of Macartney's Embassy 
to China in 1792." — Masson. 

284 4. ^a ira ("This will do," "This is the go"), "a proverb of 
the French Revolutionists when they were hanging the aristocrats in 
the streets, &c., and the burden of one of the most popular revolu- 
tionary songs, 'fa ira, fa ira, fa ira.' " — Masson. 

284 18. All morality, — Aristotle's, Zeno's, Cicero's. Each of 
these three has a high place in the history of ethical teaching : 
Aristotle for his so-called Nicomachean Ethics {cf. note 341 31 ) ; Zeno, 
who was the founder of the Stoic school of philosophy, as the teacher 
of an exalted system of morals {cf note 219, footnote); Cicero for his 
De Officiis, " Of Duties." 

285 9. Astrological shadows. Misfortunes due to being born 
under an unlucky star ; house of life is also an astrological term. 

285 24. Von Troll's Iceland. See note 48 24. 

285 25. A parliamentary rat. One who deserts his own party 
when it is losing. 

286 16. " Jam proximus," etc. ^-iV/^'/a', II, lines 311-312: "Now 
next (to Deiphobus' house) Ucalegon {i.e., his house) blazes ! " 

287 27. Quarterings. See p. 323, footnote, and note 323 2. 

287 32. Within benefit of clergy. Benefit of clergy was, under 
old English law, the right of clerics, afterward extended to all who 
could read, to plead exemption from trial before a secular judge. 
This privilege was first legally recognized in 1274, and was not wholly 
abolished until 1827. 



NOTES 



477 



288 9. Quarter Sessions. This court is held in Kngland in the 
counties by justices of the peace for the trial of minor criminal 
offences and to administer the poor-laws, etc. 

288 26. False echoes of Marengo. General Desaix was shot through 
the heart, at the battle of Marengo (June 14, 1800) ; he died without a 
word, and his body was found by Rovigo {cf. Memoirs of the Duke of 
Rovigo, London, 1835, Vol. I, p. 181), "stripped of his clothes, and sur- 
rounded by other naked bodies." Napoleon, however, published three 
different versions of an heroic and devoted message from Desaix to 
himself, the original version being : " Go, tell the First Consul that 1 
die with this regret, — that I have not done enough for posterity." 
^Cf. Lanfrey, History of Napoleon the First, 2d ed., London, 1886, 
Vol. II, p. 39.) Napoleon himself was credited likewise with the words 
De Quincey adopts. " Why is it not permitted me to weep," is one 
version (Bussey, History of Napoleon, London, 1840, Vol. I, p. 302). 
Cf. Hazlitt, Life of Napoleoji, 2d ed., London, 1852, Vol. II, p. 317, 
footnote. 

288, footnote. The cry of the foundering line-of-battle ship 
Vengeur. On the ist of June, 1794, the English fleet under Lord 
Howe defeated the French under Villaret-Joyeuse, taking six ships, and 
sinking a seventh, the Vengeur. This ship sank, as a matter of fact, 
with part of her crew on board, imploring aid which there was not time 
to give them. Some 250 men had been taken off by the English; the 
rest were lost. On the 9th of July Barrere published a report setting 
forth " how the Vengeur, . . . being entirely disabled, . . . refused to 
strike, though sinking; how the enemies fired on her, but she returned 
their fire, shot aloft all her tricolor streamers, shouted Vive la Republique, 
. . . and so, in this mad whirlwind of fire and shouting and invincible 
despair, went down into the ocean depths ; Vive la Republiqtie and a 
universal volley from the upper deck being the last sounds she made." 
Cf. Carlyle, Sinking of the Vengeur, and French Revolution, Book 
XVIII, Chap. VI. 

288, footnote. La Garde meurt, etc. "This phrase, attributed to 
Cambronne, who was made prisoner at Waterloo, was vehemently 
denied by him. It was invented by Rougemont, a prolific author of 
mots, two days after the battle, in the Independant." — Fournier's 
V Esprit dans VHistoire, trans. Bartlett, Familiar Quotations, p. 661. 

289 25. Brummagem. A vulgar form of Birmingham. Cf. note 
69 5. Cf. also Shakspere, Richard III, Act i, sc. 4, line 55 : 

" False, fleeting, perjured Clarence." 



478 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

289 27. Luxor occupies part of the site of ancient Tliebes, capital of 
Egypt ; its antiquities are famous. Cf. note 214 27. 

290 9. But on our side . . . was a tower of moral strength, etc. 
Cf. Shakspere, Richard III, Act v, sc. 3, lines 12-13: 

" Besides, the king's name is a tower of strength, 
Which they upon the adverse party want." 

291 1. Omrahs . . . from Agra and Lahore. Doubtless there is a 
reminiscence here of Wordsworth's Prelude, Book X, lines 18-20: 

" The Great Mogul, when he 
Erewhile went forth from Agra or Lahore, 
Rajahs and Omrahs in his train." 

Omrah, which is not found in Century Dictionary, is itself really plural 
of Arabic amir (ameer), a commander, nobleman. 

291 23. The 6th of Edward Longshanks. A De Quinceyan jest, 
of course. This would refer to a law of the sixth year of Edward I, or 
1278, but there are but fifteen chapters in the laws of that year. 

292 8. Not magna loquimur, . . . but vivimus. Not "we speak 
great things," but " we live " them. 

293 21. Marlborough forest is twenty-seven miles east of Bath, 
where De Quincey attended school. 

294 18. Ulysses, etc. The allusion is, of course, to the slaughter 
of the suitors of Penelope, his wife, by Ulysses, after his return. Cf, 
Odyssey, Books XXI-XXII. 

295 3. About Waterloo, i.e., about 181 5. This phrase is one of 
many that indicate the deep impression made by this event upon the 
English mind. Cf. p. 334. 

295 17. "Say, all our praises," etc. Cf. Pope, Moral Essays: 
Epistle III, Of the Use of Riches, lines 249-250: 

" But all our praises why should lords engross, 
Rise, honest Muse ! and sing the Man of Ross." 

296 3. Turrets. "Tourettes fyled rounde" appears ia Chaucer's 
Knighfs Tale, line 1294, where it means the ring on a dog's collar 
through which the leash was passed. Skeat explains torets as " prob- 
ably eyes in which rings will turn round, because each eye is a little 
larger than the thickness of the ring." Cf Chaucer's Treatise on the 
Astrolabe, Part I, sec. 2, " This ring renneth in a maner turet," " this ring 
runs in a kind of eye." But Chaucer docs not refer to harness. 



NOTES 479 

297 2. Mr. Waterton tells me. Charles Waterton, the naturalist, 
was born 1782 and died 1865. His Wanderings in Sotith America was 
published in 1825. 

299 11. Earth and her children. This paragraph is about one-fifth 
of the length of the corresponding paragraph as it appeared m Blackwood. 
For the longer version see Masson's Ed., Vol. XIII, p. 289, note 2. 

300 14. The General Post-OflS.ce. The present office was opened 
Sept. 23, 1829. St. Martin 's-le-Grand is a church within the "city" of 
London, so named to distinguish it from St. Martin's-in-the-Fields, which 
faces what is now Trafalgar Square, and is, as the name indicates, out- 
side the " city." The street takes its name from the church. 

304 10. Barnet is a Hertfordshire village, eleven miles north of 
London. 

305 iw. A "Courier" evening paper, containing the gazette. A 
gazette was originally one of the three official papers of the kingdom ; 
afterwards any official announcement, as this of a great victory. 

306 17. Fey. This is not a Celtic word ; it is the Anglo-Saxon 
fSge retained in Lowland Scotch, which is the most northerly English 
dialect. The word appears frequently in descriptions of battles ; the 
Anglo-Saxon fatalistic philosophy teaching that certain warriors 
entered the conflict fiegey " doomed." Now the meaning is altered 
slightly : " You are surely fey," would be said in Scotland, as Professor 
Masson remarks, to a person observed to be in extravagantly high 
spirits, or in any mood surprisingly beyond the bounds of his ordinary 
temperament, — the notion being that the excitement is supernatural, 
and a presage of his approaching death, or of some other calamity 
about to befall him. 

307 27. The inspiration of God, etc. This is an indication — more 
interesting than agreeeble, perhaps — of the heights to which the 
martial ardor of De Quincey's toryism rises. 

309 13. Caesar the Dictator, at his last dinner-party, etc. Related 
by Suetonius in his life of Julius Caesar, Chap. LXXXVII : " The day 
before he died, some discourse occurring at dinner in M. Lepidus' house 
upon that subject, which was the most agreeable way of dying, he ex- 
pressed his preference for what is sudden and unexpected " (repentinum 
inopinatumque praetulerat). The story is told by Plutarch and Appian 
also. 

311 13. BiaGavaros. " De Quincey has evidently taken this from 
John Donne's treatise : BIAOANATOS, A Declaration of that Paradoxe 
or Thesis, That Self-homicide is not so 7iaturally Sin, that it may ftever 
be otherwise^ 1 644. See his paper on Suicide, etc., Masson's ed. 



480 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

VIII, 398 [Riverside, IX, 209]. But n^t even Donne's precedent 
justifies the word-formation. The only acknowledged compounds are 
^(.aio-davaa-ia, 'violent death,' and ^laio-ddvaTos, 'dying a violent death.' 
Even ^iq. davaros, 'death by violence,' is not classical." — Hart. 
But the form j3ia6dvaTos is older than Donne and is said to be common 
in MSS. It should be further remarked that neither of the two com- 
pounds cited is classical. As to De Quincey's interpretation of Caesar's 
meaning here, c/. Merivale's History of the Romans under the Empire, 
Chap. XXI, where he translates Caesar's famous reply : "That which 
is least expected." Cf. also Shakspere, Jidiiis Ccesar, Act ii, sc. 2, 
line 2>3- 

313 25. " Nature, from her seat," etc. Cf. Milton's Paradise Lost, 
Book IX, lines 780-784 : 

" So saying, her rash hand in evil hour 
Forth reaching to the fruit, she pluck'd, she eat : 
Earth felt the wound, and Nature from her seat 
Sighing through all her works gave signs of woe, 
That all was lost." 

314 2. So scenical, etc. De Quincey's love for effects of this sort 
appears everywhere. Cf. the opening paragraphs of the Revolt of the 
Tartars, Masson's Ed., Vol. VII ; Riverside Ed., Vol. XII. 

315 4. Jus dominii. " The law of ownership," a legal term. 
315 14. Jus gentium. " The law of nations," a legal term. 

315 30. "Monstrum horrendum," etc. ^Eneid, III, 658. Poly- 
phemus, one of the Cyclopes, whose eye was put out by Ulysses, is 
meant. Cf. Odyssey, IX, 371 et seq. ; yEneid, III, 630 et seq. 

316 1. One of the Calendars, etc. The histories of the three 
Calenders, sons of kings, will be found in most selections from the 
Arabian Nights. A Calender is one of an order of Dervishes founded 
in the fourteenth century by an Andalusian Arab ; they are wanderers 
who preach in market-places and live by alms. 

316 10. Al Sirat. According to Mahometan teaching this bridge 
over Hades was in width as a sword's edge. Over it souls must pass to 
Paradise. 

316 12. Under this eminent man, etc. For these two sentences 
the original in Blackwood had this, with its addition of good 
De Qxiinceyan doctrine : " I used to call him Cyclops Mastigophorus, 
Cyclops the Whip-bearer, until I observed that his skill made whips 
useless, except to fetch off an impertinent fly from a leader's head, 
upon which I changed his Grecian name to Cyclops Diphrelates 



NOTES 481 

(Cyclops the Charioteer). I, and others known to mc, studied under 
him the diphrelatic art. Excuse, reader, a word too elegant to be 
pedantic. And also take this remark from me as a gage cfamitie — 
that no word ever was or can be pedantic which, by supporting a 
distinction, supports the accuracy of logic, or which fills up a chasm 
for the understanding." 

317 1. Some people have called me procrastinating. Cf. rage's 
Life, Chap. XIX, and Japp's De Quincey Memorials, Vol. II, pp. 45, 
47, 49; also Introduction, p. xxxi. 

318 11. The whole Pagan Pantheon, i.e., all the gods put together; 
from the Greek Ildj/^eioi', a temple dedicated to all the gods. 

319 2. Seven atmospheres of sleep, etc. Professor Hart suggests 
that De Quincey is here " indulging in jocular arithmetic. The three 
nights plus the three days, plus the present night equal seven." 

319 17. Lilliputian Lancaster. The county town of Lancashire, in 
which Liverpool and Manchester, towns of recent and far greater 
growth, are situated. 

320, footnote. " Giraldus Cambrensis," or Gerald de Barry 
(i 146-1220), was a Welsh historian; one of his chief works is the 
Itinerai'ium Cambri(E, or Voyage in Wales. 

323 2. Quartering. De Quincey's derivation of this word in his 
footnote is correct, but its use in this French sense is not common. 
De Quincey, however, has it above, 287 27. 

325 8. The shout of Achilles. Cf. Homer, Iliad, XVIII, 217 ^/ seq. 

326 10. Buying it, etc. De Quincey refers, no doubt, to the pay of 
common soldiers and to the practice of employing mercenaries. 

328 1. Faster than ever mill-race, etc. The change in the wording 
of this sentence in De Quincey's revision is, as Masson remarks, particu- 
larly characteristic of his sense of melody; it read in Blackwood : " We 
ran past them faster than ever mill-race in our inexorable flight." 

328 15. Here was the map, etc. This sentence is an addition in 
the reprint. Masson remarks " how artistically it causes the due pause 
between the horror as still in rush of transaction and the backward 
look at the wreck when the crash was past." 

329 18. "Whence the sound," etc. Paradise Lost, Book XI, lines 

558-563- 

330 3. Woman's Ionic form. In thus using the word Ionic 
De Quincey doubtless has in mind the character of Ionic architecture, 
with its tall and graceful column, differing from the severity of the 
Doric on the one hand and from the floridity of the Corinthian on the 
other. Probably he is thinking of a caryatid. Cf the following version 



482 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

of the old story of the origm of the styles of Greek architecture in 
Vitruvius, IV, Chap. I (Gwilt's translation), quoted by Hart : " They 
measured a man's foot, and finding its length the sixth part of his height, 
they gave the column a similar proportion, that is, they made its height 
six times the thickness of the shaft measured at the base. Thus the 
Doric order obtained its proportion, its strength, and its beauty, from 
the human figure. With a similar feeling they afterward built the 
Temple of Diana. But in that, seeking a new proportion, they used the 
female figure as a standard ; and for the purpose of producing a more 
lofty effect, they first made it eight times its thickness in height. 
Under it they placed a base, after the manner of a shoe to the foot ; 
they also added volutes to its capital, like graceful curling hair hanging 
on each side, and the front they ornamented with cymatia and festoons 
in the place of hair. On the shafts they sunk channels, which bear 
a resemblance to the folds of a matronal garment. Thus two orders 
were invented, one of a masculine character, without ornament, the 
other bearing a character which resembled the delicacy, ornament, and 
proportion of a female. The successors of these people, improving in 
taste, and preferring a more slender proportion, assigned seven diameters 
to the height of the Doric column, and eight and a half to the Ionic." 

331 3. Corymbi. Clusters of fruit or flowers. 

331 28. Quarrel. The bolt of a cross-bow, an arrow having a 
square, or four-edged head (from Middle Latin quadrellus, diminutive 
of quadrum, a square). 

334 20. Waterloo and Recovered Christendom ! Cf. note 295 3. 

339 29. The endless resurrections of His love. The following, 
which Masson prints as a postscript, was a part of De Quincey's intro- 
duction to the volume of the Collective Edition containing this piece : 

'"The English Mail-Coach.' — This little paper, according to my origi- 
nal intention, formed part of the ' Suspiria de Profundis ' ; from which, for a 
momentary purpose, I did not scruple to detach it, and to publish it apart, as 
sufficiently intelligible even when dislocated from its place in a larger whole. 
To my surprise, however, one or two critics, not carelessly in conversation, but 
deliberately in print, professed their inability to apprehend the meaning of the 
whole, or to follow the links of the connexion between its several parts. I am 
myself as little able to understand where the difficulty lies, or to detect any 
lurking obscurity, as these critics found themselves to unravel my logic. Pos- 
sibly I may not be an indifferent and neutral judge in such a case. I will there- 
fore sketch a brief abstract of the little paper according to my original design, 
and then leave the reader to judge how far this design is kept in sight through 
the actual execution. 



NOTES 483 

" Thirty-seven years ago, or rather more, accident made me, in the dead of 
night, and of a night memorably solemn, the solitary witness of an appalling 
scene, which threatened instant death in a shape the most terrific to two young 
people whom I had no means of assisting, except in so far as I was able to give 
them a most hurried warning of their danger; but even that not until they 
stood within the very shadow of the catastrophe, being divided from the most 
frightful of deaths by scarcely more, if more at all, then seventy seconds. 

" Such was the scene, such in its outline, from which the whole of this paper 
radiates as a natural expansion. This scene is circumstantially narrated in 
Section the Second, entitled ' The Vision of Sudden Death.' 

" But a movement of horror, and of spontaneous recoil from this dreadful 
scene, naturally carried the whole of that scene, raised and idealised, into my 
dreams, and very soon into a rolling succession of dreams. The actual scene, 
as looked down upon from the box of the mail, was transformed into a dream, as 
tumultuous and changing as a musical fugue. This troubled dream is circum- 
stantially reported in Section the Third, entitled ' Dream-Fugue on the theme 
of Sudden Death.' What I had beheld from my seat upon the mail, — the 
scenical strife of action and passion, of anguish and fear, as I had there witnessed 
them moving in ghostly silence, — this duel between life and death narrowing 
itself to a point of such exquisite evanescence as the collision neared : all these 
elements of the scene blended, under the law of association, with the pre- 
vious and permanent features of distinction investing the mail itself; which 
features at that time lay — ist, in velocity unprecedented, 2dly, in the power 
and beauty of the horses, 3dly, in the official connexion with the government of a 
great nation, and, 4thly, in the function, almost a consecrated function, of pub- 
lishing and diffusing through the land the great political events, and especially 
the great battles, during a conflict of unparalleled grandeur. These honorary 
distinctions are all described circumstantially in the First or introductory 
Section (' The Glory of Motion'). The three first were distinctions maintained 
at all times ; but the fourth and grandest belonged exclusively to the war with 
Napoleon ; and this it was which most naturally introduced Waterloo into the 
dream. Waterloo, I understand, was the particular feature of the 'Dream- 
Fugue ' which my censors were least able to account for. Yet surely Waterloo, 
which, in common with every other great battle, it had been our special privilege 
to publish over all the land, most naturally entered the dream under the licence 
of our privilege. If not — if there be anything amiss — let the Dream be respon- 
sible. The Dream is a law to itself ; and as well quarrel with a rainbow for 
showing, or for not showing, a secondary arch. So far as I know, every element 
in the shifting movements of the Dream derived itself either primarily from 
the incidents of the actual scene, or from secondary features associated with the 
mail. For example, the cathedral aisle derived itself from the mimic combina- 
tion of features which grouped themselves together at the point of approaching 
collision — viz. an arrow-like section of the road, six hundred yards long, under 
the solemn lights described, with lofty trees meeting overhead in arches. The 
guard's horn, again — a humble instrument in itself — was yet glorified as the 



484 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

organ of publication for so many great national events. And the incident of 
the Dying Trumpeter, who rises from a marble bas-relief, and carries a marble 
trumpet to his marble lips for the purpose of warning the female infant, was 
doubtless secretly suggested by my own imperfect effort to seize the guard's 
horn, and to blow the warning blast. But the Dream knows best ; and the 
Dream, I say again, is the responsible party." 



ON MURDER CONSIDERED AS ONE OF THE FINE ARTS 
Second Paper. 1839. 

This paper appeared originally in Blackwood'' s Magazine for November, 
1839, nearly thirteen years after the publication of the First Paper. The 
Postscript, called in America the " Three Memorable Murders," did not 
come out till the Collective Edition in 1854. It is needless to say that 
each one of these parts, if such they can be called at all, separated so 
widely in time, can without serious loss be used by itself. This selection 
is found in Works, Masson's Ed., Vol. XIII, pp. 52-69 ; Riverside Ed., 
Vol. XI, pp. 570-587. 

340 ]. A good many years ago, etc. In the original article in 
Blackwood there was this opening paragraph : "Doctor North — You 
are a liberal man : liberal in the true classical sense, not in the slang 
sense of modern politicians and education-mongers. Being so, I am 
sure that you will sympathise with my case. I am an ill-used man, Dr. 
North — particularly ill-used ; and, with your permission, I will briefly 
explain how. A black scene of calumny will be laid open ; but you. 
Doctor, will make all things square again. One frown from you, 
directed to the proper quarter, or a warning shake of the crutch, will 
set me right in public opinion ; which at present, I am sorry to say, 
is rather hostile to me and mine — all owing to the wicked acts of slan- 
derers. But you shall hear." Dr. North was, of course. Professor Wilson, 
— whose pseudonym was Christopher North, — De Quincey's friend, 
and the chief adviser for many years of the publishers of the Magazine. 

340 2. A dilettante in murder. De Quincey's interest in the great 
murder mysteries of his time was intense. Cf. pp. 76, 396-397, and 
note 396 28; see De Quincey's long letters on the Palmer and Madeline 
Smith cases. Page's Life, Vol. II, pp. 115-117, 133-134; also the follow- 
ing footnote by Masson (Vol. XIII, p. 95) : " An interesting pamphlet 
just published [1890] by Mr. Charles Pollitt of Kendal, under the title 
De Quincey^s Editorship of the Westmorland Gazette, informs us that, 
during the whole period of his editorship of that provincial Tory 



NOTES 485 

journal (which extended, it now appears, exactly from nth July 1818 
to 5th November 18 19), he was notably fond of filling his columns with 
assize reports and murder trials. ' During the whole of his connexion 
with the paper,' says Mr. Pollitt, 'assize news formed not only a 
prominent, but frequently an all-absorbing portion of the available 
space.' In illustration, Mr. Pollitt quotes the following editorial notice 
from the paper for 8th August 1818 : — 'This week it will be observed 
that our columns are occupied almost exclusively with assize reports. 
We have thought it right to allow them precedency of all other news, 
whether domestic or foreign, for the three following reasons : — 
(i) Because to all ranks alike they possess a powerful and command- 
ing interest. (2) Because to the more uneducated classes they yield a 
singular benefit, by teaching them their social duties in the most im- 
pressive shape : that is to say, not in a state of abstraction from all 
that may explain, illustrate, and enforce them (as in the naked terms of 
the Statute), but exemplified (and, as the logicians say, concreted) in the 
actual circumstances of an interesting case, and in connexion with the 
penalties that accompany their neglect or their violation. (3) Because 
they present the best indications of the moral condition of society.' 
What the Westmorland people thought of this perpetual provision of 
horrors for them by the editor of the Gazette does not quite appear; 
but it seems to have been one of the causes of that dissatisfaction on 
the part of the proprietors of the paper which led, according to Mr. 
Pollitt, to the termination of De Quincey's editorship." 

341 17. Civilation. In his second paper on Sir William Hamilton, 
which appeared in Hogg's Instructor in 1852 {cf. Works, Masson's Ed., 
Vol. V, pp. 318-332 ; Riverside Ed., Vol. IX, pp. 282-300), De Quincey 
again uses this word and explains it in the following footnote : " And 
what state may that be } As the word is a valuable word, and in some 
danger of being lost, I beg to rehearse its history. The late Dr. Maginn, 
with whom some of us may otherwise have had reason to quarrel, was, 
however, a man of varied accomplishments, — a wit, with singular readi- 
ness for improvising, and with very extensive scholarship. Amongst 
the peculiar opinions that he professed was this — that no man, however 
much he might tend tow^ard civilisation, was to be regarded as having 
absolutely reached its apex until he was drunk. Previously to which 
consummation, a man might be a promising subject for civilisation, but 
otherwise than in posse it must be premature ; so he must be considered 
as more or less of a savage. This doctrine he naturally published more 
loudly than ever as he was himself more and more removed from all 
suspicion of barbaric sobriety. He then became anxious, with tears in 



486 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCEY 

his eyes, to proclaim the deep sincerity of his conversion to civilisation. 
But, as such an odiously long word must ever be distressing to a gen- 
tleman taking his ease of an evening, unconsciously, perhaps, he 
abridged it always after lo p.m. into civilation. Such was the genesis 
of the word. And I therefore, upon entering it in my neological dic- 
tionary of English, matriculated it thus : — Civilation^ by ellipsis, or 
more properly by syncope, or, rigorously speaking, by hiccup, from 
civilisation!'^ Maginn brought the word into literature by using it in 
the Noctes Anibrosiamx, No. 4, July, 1S22. In a note Mackenzie, the 
editor of the Noctes, speaks of the word as "one which he (Maginn) 
had invented and solely used for a long time." 

341 31. The Stagirite . . . placed virtue in the to |x€<rov. Aristotle 
was called the Stagirite from his birthplace, Stagira, in Macedonia. 
According to his teaching, " ethical virtue is that permanent direction 
of the will which guards the mean [t6 fji^aov] proper for us. . . . Bravery 
is the mean between cowardice and temerity; temperance, the mean 
between inordinate desire and stupid indifference ; etc." — Ueberw^eg, 
History of Philosophy, Vol. I, p. 169. 

342 9. In fact, I'm for peace, and quietness, etc. In the original 
Blackwood version this sentence ran : " I'm for virtue, and goodness, 
and all that sort of thing." Immediately after it came this passage, the 
omission of which would seem to be a loss : "And two instances I'll 
give you to what an extremity I carry my virtue. The first may seem a 
trifle ; but not if you knew my nephew, who was certainly bom to be 
hanged, and would have been so long ago, but for my restraining voice. 
He is horribly ambitious, and thinks himself a man of cultivated taste 
in most branches of murder, whereas, in fact, he has not one idea on 
the subject but such as he has stolen from me. This is so well known 
that the Club has twice blackballed him, though every indulgence was 
shown to him as my relative. People came to me and said — ' Now 
really, President, we would do much to serve a relative of yours. But 
still, what can be said ? You know yourself that he'll disgrace us. If 
we were to elect him, why, the next thing we should hear of would be 
some vile butcherly murder, by way of justifying our choice. And 
what sort of a concern would it be ? You know, as well as we do, that 
it would be a disgraceful affair, more worthy of the shambles than of 
an artist's atelier. He would fall upon some great big man, some huge 
farmer returning drunk from a fair. There would be plenty of blood, 
and that he would expect us to take in lieu of taste, finish, scenical 
grouping. Then, again, how would he tool } Why, most probably with 
a cleaver and a couple of paving-stones : so that the whole coup d^ceil 



AZOTES 



487 



would remind you rather of some hideous Ogre or Cyclops than of the 
delicate operator of the 19th century.' The picture was drawn with 
the hand of truth; that I could not but allow, and, as to personal 
feelings in the matter, I dismissed them from the first. The next 
morning I spoke to my nephew : I was delicately situated, as you see, 
but I determined that no consideration should induce me to flinch from 
my duty. 'John,' said I, ' you seem to me to have taken an erroneous 
view of life and its duties. Pushed on by ambition, you are dreaming 
rather of what it might be glorious to attempt than what it would be 
possible for you to accomplish. Believe me, it is not necessary to a 
man's respectability that he should commit a murder. Many a man 
has passed through life most respectably without attempting any 
species of homicide — good, bad, or indifferent. It is your first duty to 
ask yourself, gjcid valeajtt humeri, quid ferre recusent? [Horace, Ars 
Poetica, 39-40 : " What your shoulders are equal to, what they refuse 
to bear?"] We cannot all be brilliant men in this life. And it is for 
your interest to be contented rather with a humble station well filled 
than to shock everybody with failures, the more conspicuous by con- 
trast with the ostentation of their promises.' John made no answer; 
he looked very sulky at the moment, -and I am in high hopes that I 
have saved a near relative from making a fool of himself by attempting 
what is as much beyond his capacity as an epic poem. Others, how- 
ever, tell me that he is meditating a revenge upon me and the whole 
Club. But, let this be as it may, liberavi animam nieam [" I have 
freed my mind" ; cf. ICzekiel, iii, 19, 21] ; and, as you see, have run some 
risk with a wish to diminish the amount of homicide." As to the Clul) 
here referred to, the First Part gives the following explanation in its 
"Advertisement": " Most of us who read books have probably heard of 
a Society for the Promotion of Vice, of the Hell-Fire Club founded in 
the last century by Sir Francis Dashwood, &c. At Brighton I think 
it was that a Society was formed for the Suppression of Virtue. That 
society was itself suppressed ; but I am sorry to say that another exists 
in London, of a character still more atrocious. In tendency, it may be 
denominated a Society for the Encouragement of Murder; but, accord- 
ing to their own delicate ey077/ii<r/ios [euphemism], it is styled the Society 
of Connoisseurs in Murder. They profess to be curious in homicide, 
amateurs and dilettanti in the various modes of carnage, and, in short. 
Murder Fanciers. Every fresh atrocity of that class which the police 
annals of Europe bring up, they meet and criticise as they would a 
picture, statue, or other work of art." The writer goes on to say that 
"one of the Monthly Lectures read before the society last year" has 



488 SELECTIONS EROM DE QUINCE Y 

fallen into his hands, etc. ; the writer of our Second Paper is of course 
the author of the Lecture, not the writer of the Advertisement. 

342 32. For, if once a man, etc. This is a rather famous sentence ; 
and it must not be forgotten in connection with it that De Quincey was 
a double-dyed procrastinator. See note 317 1. 

343 5 Principiis obsta. Ovid, Remedia Amoris, line 91 : "Make a 
stand against the first approaches." 

343 21. Laudator temporis acti [se puero]. Horace, A7's Poetica, 
line 173 : "A praiser of past times, when he was himself a boy." 

343 30. " God's Revenge upon Murder." The Triumphs of God's 
Revenge against the Crying and Execrable Sin of Murder, London, 1621. 
There were five later "parts; all six were published together in 1635; 
and there was an enlarged edition in 1679 (Masson). 

343 31. A more ancient book, etc. This book, which Nigel was 
reading just before he heard of the murder of the miser Trapbois (Chap. 
XXIV), is described by Scott thus: "The book was entitled God's 
Revenge against Murther ; not, as the bibliomaniacal reader may easily 
conjecture, the work which Reynolds published under that imposing 
name, but one of a much earlier date, printed and sold by old Wolfe." 

343 33. The " Newgate Calendar" was a record of the lives of the 
most notorious criminals confined in Newgate prison in London. 

344 2. The great cause of degeneration in murder. To the murder 
fancier the wholesale destruction by guillotine in the French Revolution 
must have seemed criminal ! 

344 8. " Nor up the lawn," etc. This line having been taken from 
one of the closing stanzas of Gray's Elegy, De Quincey continues with 
a metrical parody of this stanza, describing the solitary poet : 

" There at the foot of yonder nodding beech 
That wreathes its old fantastic roots so high 
His listless length at noontide he would stretch, 
And pore upon the brook that babbles by." 

344 31. Brushing with hasty steps the dews away, etc. This 
parodies Gray's stanza in the Elegy : 

" Haply some hoary-headed Swain may say, 
Oft have we seen him at the peep of dawn 
Brushing with hasty steps the dews away, 
To meet the sun upon the upland lawn." 

As Masson points out, De Quincey produces four lines of verse, ending 
respectively with " away," "side," "hear," "aside." 



NOTES 489 

345 8. The great exterminating chef-d'oeuvre, etc. The two Wil- 
liams murders are tellingly described by De Quincey in his Postscript, 
Masson's Ed., Vol. XIII, p. 70; Three Memorable Murders, Riverside 
Ed., Vol. XI, p. 588. 

345 16. La Bruyere. Jean de La Bruyere (1645-96) was a French 
novelist. His great work was Les Caracteres, "Characters," i.e., 
Character Sketches. Cf. Sir Thomas Overbury's Characters. 

346 15. A second age of Leo the Tenth. Leo X (Giovanni de' 
Medici, 1475-1523), Pope from 1513, was "the only Pope who has 
bestov/ed his own name upon his age." The love of art and letters 
was his ruling passion. He recognized and fostered the genius of 
Raphael ; and as to his patronage of literature, " every Italian man of 
letters, in an age of singular intellectual brilliancy, tasted or might 
have hoped to taste, of his bounty." 

346 27. The turning up of Thugs and Thuggism. " It was about 
the year 1831 that the British authorities in India began really energetic 
meaiiures for the suppression of the Thugs, — the sect or fraternity in 
Northern India whose practice it was, under the sanction of hereditary 
custom and religion, to waylay and murder travellers, carefully burying 
the bodies, and dividing the spoil. One of the first books on Thugs 
and Thuggism was Thornton's Illustrations of the History atid Prac- 
tices of the Thugs, published in 1837." — Masson. See J. Hutton, 
Thugs and Dacoits of India, London, 188 1, and Meadows Taylor, 
Confessiofts of a Thug, London, 1840. 

347 2. It passes my persimmon to tell you. This is an effort on 
De Quincey's part to make use of American slang. Cf the American 
proverb, " The longest pole knocks down the persimmons," and the 
expression, " Not a huckleberry to my persimmons." Other examples of 
American slang in De Quincey are " almighty fix," " gone coon," etc. 

347 17. "Et interrogatum," etc. "And it was asked of Toad- 
in-the-Hole — Where is that reporter? And it was answered with 
laughter — He has not been found." Chorus. " Then it was repeated 
by all, with laughter undulating, confused — He has not been found." 
Non est inventus is a Late Latin legal formula by which the issuer of 
a writ is informed that the person sought is not forthcoming. Cf. 
Nash's Unfortunate Traveller (1594), 1892, p. 194: ^'fuliana informed 
the pope of Zacheries and his practise, Zachary was sought for, but 
non est inuentus, he was packing long before." 

347 23. The Burke-and-Hare revolution in the art. " In 1828 
Edinburgh was horrified by the discovery that two Irishmen, William 
Burke and William Hare, with one or more accomplices, had been 



49 o SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

carrying on a traffic in murder for the hideous purpose of selling the 
dead bodies as subjects for anatomical use. Their method was to lure 
wayfaring strangers, beggar-women, idiots and such other poor crea- 
tures as were not likely to be missed, into the dens where they lived, 
especially into Burke's house in a court off the West Port, and there 
to make them drunk, and then smother or strangle them. It is com- 
puted that as many as sixteen victims had been thus disposed of before 
the horror was found out. Condemned for one of the murders, Burke 
was hanged on the 28th of January 1829, his colleague Hare having, 
greatly to the disgust of the public, escaped the same doom by acting 
as king's evidence on the trial. — There is no more striking instance of 
the coining of a metonymy than in the immediate conversion of the 
name of the Edinburgh murderer of 1828 into a new word in the 
English language [c/! boycott\. People at once began to use the word 
burk (the final e dropped) as a verb for suffocate, whether in the literal 
sense of killing by suffocation (in which sense an anatomical lecture- 
room in a northern Scottish town was for a while popularly known as 
' The Burking-House,' from the notion that subjects were obtained for 
it, or actually manufactured within its walls, by Burke's method), or in 
a more figurative sense in such phrases as ' His speech was burked' i.e., 
choked off or suppressed by the impatient audience. — Hare, whom the 
Edinburgh mob would have torn to pieces if they could have clutched 
him, disappeared from public view, and lived on, no one knows where, 
or in how many different places, under another name. There is a 
legend that, as he was working somewhere as a plasterer's labourer, his 
fellow-workmen, finding out who he was, rolled him in lime or pelted 
him with lime, with the result of the total destruction of his eyesight. 
An old gray-haired man who used to sit begging by the railings of the 
National Gallery in Trafalgar Square, London, was pointed out to 
myself, more than twenty years ago [about 1870], as no other than the 
murderer Hare. I was sceptical at the time, and rather because the 
look of the old man was not un venerable ; and I have heard since of 
the supposed identification of Hare with this or that similarly con- 
spicuous blind mendicant in other localities." — Masson. 

348 5. The Old Man of the Mountains. In the First Paper 
De Quincey says : " He was a shining light indeed, and I need not tell 
you that the very word ' assassin ' is deduced from him. So keen an 
amateur \i.e. lover of the art] was he that on one occasion, when his 
own life was attempted by a favourite assassin, he was so much pleased 
with the talent shown that, notwithstanding the failure of the artist, he 
created him a duke upon the spot, with remainder to the female line, 



NOTES 



491 



and settled a pension on him for three lives." And the following is 
added in a footnote : " The name ' Old Man of the Mountains ' does 
not designate any individual person, but was the title, — in Arabic 
Sheikh-al-jebal, 'Prince of the Mountain,' — of a series of chiefs who 
presided from 1090 to 1258 over a community or military order of 
fanatical Mohammedan sectaries, called The Assassins, distributed 
through Persia and Syria, but with certain mountain-ranges for their 
headquarters. But, though there is no doubt that the words assassin 
and assassination, as terms for secret murder, and especially for secret 
murder by stabbing, are a recollection of the reputed habits of this old 
Persian and Syrian community, the original etymology of the word 
Assassins itself, as the name of the community, is not so certain. Skeat 
sets it down as simply the Arabic hashishin, ' hashish-drinkers,' from 
the fact or on the supposition that the agents of the Old Man of the 
Mountains, when they were detached on their murderous errands, 
went forth nerved for the task by the intoxication of hashish, or Indian 
hemp." This etymology is universally accepted. Cf. Hewlett's Richard 
Yea-and-Nay, 1900. 

348 11. Mr. von Hammer, etc. "Von Hammer's Geschichte der 
Aisassine?t was published in 18 18. In a note to Gibbon's account of 
the Assassins and the Old Man of the Mountains, he had acknowledged 
his authority thus : — 'All that can be known of the Assassins of Persia 
and Syria is procured from the copious, and even profuse, erudition of 
M. Falconet in two Memoires read before the Academy of Inscriptions '; 
to which this note by Milman is added in the 1839 edition of Gibbon: — 
' Von Hammer's History of the Assassins has now thrown Falconet's 
dissertation into the shade.' " — Masson. 

348 24. Malleus haereticorum. " Hammer of the heretics," the title 
of Charles Martel ; cf. below. 

348 26. The ship-carpenter's mallet. The tool used by Williams 
to strike down all his victims. See Postso-ipt, or Three Memorable 
Murders: Masson's Ed., Vol. XIII, p. 70; Riverside Ed., Vol. XI, 
p. 588. 

348 27. Charles Martel (Modern French Marteau, " hammer ") gained 
his name by defeating the Saracens between Poitiers and Tours in 732. 

349 12. The Jewish Sicarii. De Quincey shows an interest in 
them elsewhere {cf. The Essenes, Riverside Ed., Vol. VIII, p. 113; 
Masson's Ed., Vol. VII, p. 150). These Sicarii are referred to in Acts, 
xxi, 38 : " Art not thou [Paul] that Egyptian which before these days 
madest an uproar and leddest out into the wilderness four thousand 
men that were murderers?" 



492 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

349 26. Josephus. Flavius Joseph us (Jewish name Joseph ben 
Matthias, a.d. 38-100), the great Jewish historian, was of distinguished 
priestly ancestry, but from early years a sympathizer with Rome. In 
the Judaeo-Roman war he was a leader, but he managed to save him- 
self, and secured the favor of Vespasian and Titus, and a competency. 
He wrote The Jewish War in seven books, and Antiqtnties of the Jews 
in twenty books ; his style has gained him the epithet of " the Hebrew 
Livy." Cf. De Quincey's treatment of him in The Essenes (see above). 

349 28. Jonathan himself, the Pontifex Maximus. For this 
account of the murder of Jonathan the high priest, see Whiston's 
Josephus, Antiquities, Book XX, Chap. VIII, sec. 5. 

350 7. Three different parts. The second important place is in the 
Jewish War, Book VII, Chap. X, sec. i. The reference to Book I of 
the War concerns apparently Chap. XVI, sec. 4. 

350 19. Festus. Porcius Festus, a Roman procurator in Palestine 
about 60-62 A. D. ; the same with whom Paul was concerned, Acts, 
xxv-xxvi. 

351 1. Father Mersenne, etc. " Marin Mersenne, a monk of a 
convent near Paris, was born 15S8 and died 1648. Among his works is 
a Commentary on Cenesis, published at Paris in 1623 under the title 
P. Marini Mersenni, ordinio niinofiem S. Frajtcisci de Paula Quaestiones 
celeberrimae in Genesitn, cum accurata Textus explicatione. It is a large 
folio, each page divided into two columns, and w'ith the columns num- 
Ijered, and not the pages. De Quincey, with all his exactness, had not 
observed this, and is consequently wrong in his twice emphasized joke 
that the passage he cites is on ' page one thousand four hundred and 
thirty-one.' It is in column 1431, which would be page 716 only." — 
Masson. 

351 7. Abelem, etc. " That Abel had been torn to pieces by Cain 
with his teeth." 

351 16. "Frater," etc. From Yx\x^^ixv\S.w>, Ilamartigenia, Preface, 
lines 15-16. 

352 8. Finds it to be Cape. That is, Cape Colony wine. 

352 24. Pancirollus . . . de rebus deperditis. Guido Panciroli 
(1523-99), an Italian lawyer, was the author of a work on lost arts 
and inventions. 

352 27. The art of painting upon glass, of making the myrrhine 
cups. Cf. as to the former art the following by C. H. Wilson in the 
Encyclopedia Britannica : " The manufacture of colored glass, which 
is the basis of the beautiful and interesting art of glass painting, origi- 
nated at a period of remote antiquity, and the use of enamels, to vary 



NOTES 



493 



or ornament the surface, was known to the ancient Egyptians ; but the 
formation of windows of mosaics of colored glass upon which the 
shapes of figures and ornaments are painted with an enamel fixed by 
fire is mediaeval, and emphatically a Christian art. . . . Colored windows 
existed in St. Sophia at Constantinople in the 6th century." As to the 
myrrhine cups, see the Century Dictionary : *' Murra (murrha, myrrha), 
in Ro7nan antiquities^ an ornamental stone of which vases, cups, and 
other ornamental articles were made. . . . Pliny is the only author who 
has attempted any detailed description of it. Unfortunately his 
accounts are so vague that the material cannot be positively identified, 
nor has anything been found in the excavations at Rome which is cer- 
tainly known to be the ancient murra. In the opinion of the best 
authorities, however, it was fluor-spar, for of the known materials this 
is the only one found in abundance which has the peculiar coloration 
indicated by Pliny. The principal objections to this theory is that no 
fragments of fluor-spar vases have been found in Rome or its vicinity. 
Vessels of murra were at one time considered by the Romans as of 
inestimable value." Cf. Milton's Paradise Regained, Book IV, lines 

I 1S-120: 

" And how they quaff in gold, 
Crystal and myrrhine cups emboss'd with gems 
And studs of pearl." 

Here the poet may have in mind the modern murrine or myrrhine glass, 
in making which gold and precious stones are embedded in the glass 
itself. 

352 30. Planudes. Planudes Maximus, a Byzantine monk of the 
fourteenth century. 

352 34. Salmasius, etc. Claude de Saumaise (i 588-1 653), of French 
birth, was the greatest scholar of his age in Western Europe. He 
became professor in Leyden in 1631 ; in 1649 he published his Defensio 
Regia, a defence of the government of Charles I, which brought out 
Milton's Defejisio pro Popiilo Anglicano in reply. Flavins Vopiscus, of 
the fourth century, was the author of some of the lives of Roman 
emperors now collected in the Historia Augusta. 

352 34. 'Est et elegans,' etc. "That is also a choice epigram of 
Lucilius, where a doctor and an undertaker by compact so arrange that 
the doctor should kill all the sick committed to his care. And that he 
should turn them all over to his friend the undertaker to be laid out." 

354 22. In their lives, etc. Cf. II Samuel, i, 23. 

354 29. Their names unfortunately are lost. " In the Greek 
form cf the epigram the Doctor figures as Krateas and the Pollinctor 



494 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

as Damon. So the readers of the original article in Blackwood were 
informed in an editorial note which Wilson took the trouble to subjoin 
to De Quincey's text. The note was in these words : — ' Here is the 
Greek epigram — with a version. C. N. {i.e., Christopher North]. We 
need not give the Greek here. Wilson's version (or was it his .'') is as 
follows : — 

" Damon, who plied the undertaker's trade, 
With Doctor Krateas an agreement made 
What grave clothes Damon from the dead could seize 
He to the Doctor sent for bandages ; 
While the good Doctor — here no bargain-breaker — 
Sent all his patients to the Undertaker." ' " — Masson. 



JOAN OF ARC 

This article appeared originally in TaWs Magazine for March and 
August, 1847 > it '^'^s reprinted by De Quincey in 1854 in the third 
volume of his Collected Writings. It is found in Works, Masson's Ed., 
Vol. V, pp. 384-416; Riverside Ed., Vol. VI, pp. 178-215. 

356 10. Lorraine, now in great part in the possession of Germany, 
is the district in which Domremy, Joan's birthplace, is situated. 

357 14. Vaucouleurs. A town near Domremy ; cf. p. 362. 

357 28. En contumace. "In contumacy," a legal term applied to 
one who, when summoned to court, fails to appear. 

358 13. Rouen. The city in Normandy where Joan was burned at 
the stake. 

358 25. The lilies of France. The royal emblem of France from 
very early times until the Revolution of 1789, when "the wrath of God 
and man combined to wither them." 

359 5. M. Michelett Jules Michelet (1798-1874) is said to have 
spent forty years in the preparation of his great work, the History of 
France. Cf. the same, translated by G. H. Smith, 2 vols., Appleton, 
Vol. II, pp. 1 19-169; ox Joan of Arc, from Michelet's History of 
Frajtce, translated by O. W. Wight, New York, 1858. 

359 8. Recovered liberty. The Revolution of 1830 had expelled the 
restored Bourbon kings. 

359 20. The book against priests. Michelet's lectures as professor 
of history in the College de France, in which he attacked the Jesuits, 
were published as follows : Des fesuites, 1843; ^^ Pritre, de la Femme 
et de la Famille, 1844; Du Peiiple, 1845. To the second De Quincey 
apparently refers. 



NOTES 



495 



359 26. Back to the falconer's lure. The lure was a decoy used to 
recall the hawk to its perch, — sometimes a dead pigeon, sometimes an 
artificial bird, with some meat attached. 

360 6. On the model of Lord Percy. These lines, in Percy's Folio, 
ed. Hales and Fumivall, Vol. II, p. 7, run : 

" The stout Erie of Northumberland 
a vow to God did make, 
his pleasure in the Scottish woods 
3 somwers days to take." 

360 27. Pucelle d'Orleans. Maid of Orleans (the city on the Loire 
which Joan saved). 

361 1. The collection, etc. The work meant is Quicherat, Proces 
de Cojidamnation et Rehabilitation de Jeamie d^Arc, 5 vols., Paris, 
1841-49. Cf. De Quincey's note. 

361 21. Delenda est Anglia Victrix ! " Victorious England must be 
destroyed ! " Cf. Deienda est Carthago ! note 54 33. 

361 27. Hyder All {1702-82), a Mahometan adventurer, made him- 
self maharajah of Mysore and gave the English in India serious 
trouble; he was defeated in 1782 by Sir Eyre Coote. Tippoo Sahib, 
his son and successor, proved less dangerous and was finally killed at 
Serin gapatam in 1799. 

362 4. Nationality it was not, i.e., nationalism — patriotism — it was 
not. Cf. Revolt of the Tartars, Riverside Ed., Vol. XII, p. 4; Masson's 
Ed., Vol. VII, p. 370, wdiere De Quincey speaks of the Torgod as "tribes 
whose native ferocity was exasperated by debasing forms of superstition, 
and by a nationality as well as an inflated conceit of their own merit 
absolutely unparalleled." Cf also footnote, p. 386. 

362 4. Suffren. The great French admiral who in 1780-81 inflicted 
so much loss upon the British. 

362 10. Magnanimous justice of Englishmen. As Professor Hart 
observes, the treatment of Joan in Henry VI is hardly magnanimous. 

363 29. That odious man. Cf. pp. 371-372. 

364 12. Three great successive battles. Rudolf of Lorraine fell at 
Crecy(i346); Frederick of Lorraine at Agincourt (1415); the battle 
of Nicopolis, which sacrificed the third Lorrainer, took place in 1396. 

365 24. Charles VI (i 368-1 422) had killed several men during his 
first fit of insanity. He was for the rest of his life wholly unfit to 
govern. He declared Henry V of England, the conqueror of Agin- 
court, his successor, thus disinheriting the Dauphin, his son. 

366 2. The famines, etc. Horrible famines occurred in France 



496 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

and England in 1315, 1336, and 1353. Such insurrections as Wat 
Tyler's, in 138 1, are probably in De Quincey's mind. 

366 6. The termination of the Crusades. The Crusades came to 
an end about 1271. *' The ulterior results of the crusades," concludes 
Cox in Encyclopa:dia Britannica, " were the breaking up of the feudal 
system, the abolition of serfdom, the supremacy of a common law over the 
independent jurisdiction of chiefs who claimed the right of private wars." 

366 7. The destruction of the Templars, This most famous of 
the military orders, founded in the twelfth century for the defence of the 
Latin kingdom of Jerusalem, having grown so powerful as to be greatly 
feared, was suppressed at the begmning of the fourteenth century. 

366 7. The Papal interdicts. " De Quincey has probably in mind 
such an interdict as that pronounced in 1200, by Innocent III, against 
France. All ecclesiastical functions were suspended and the land was 
in desolation." — Hart. England was put under interdict several times, 
as in 1 170 (for the murder of Becket) and 1208. 

366 8. The tragedies caused or suffered by the house of Anjou, 
and by the Emperor. " The Emperor is Konradin, the last of the 
Hohenstaufen, beheaded by Charles of Anjou at Naples, 1268. The 
subsequent cruelties of Charles in Sicily caused the popular uprising 
known as the vSicilian Vespers, 1282, in which many thousands of 
Frenchmen were assassinated." — Hart. 

366 10. The colossal figure of feudalism, etc. The English yeo- 
men at Crecy, overpowering the mounted knights of France, took from 
feudalism its chief support, — the superiority of the mounted knight to 
the unmounted yeoman. Cf. Green, History of the English People, 
Book IV, Chap. II. 

366 1.5. The abominable spectacle of a double Pope. For thirty- 
eight years this paradoxical state of things endured. 

367 15. The Roman martyrology. A list of the martyrs of the 
Church, arranged according to the order of their festivals, and with 
accounts of their lives and sufferings. 

368 4. "Abbeys there were," etc. Cf. Wordsworth, Peter Bell, 
Part Second : 

" Temples like those among the Hindoos, 
And mosques, and spires, and abbey windows, 
And castles all with ivy green." 

368 17. The Vosges . . . have never attracted much notice, etc. 
They came into like prominence after De Quincey's day in the Franco- 
Prussian War of 1870. 



NOTES 497 

368 31. Those mysterious fawns, etc. In some of the romances 
of the Middle Ages, especially those containing Celtic material, a 
knight, while hunting, is led by his pursuit of a white fawn (or a white 
stag or boar) to 2l fee {i.e., an inhabitant of the " Happy Other-world") 
or into the confines of the " Happy Other-world " itself. Sometimes, as 
in the Guigemar of Marie de France, the knight passes on to a series of 
adventures in consequence of his meeting with the white fawn. I owe 
this note to the kindness of Mr. S. W. Kinney, A.M., of Baltimore. 

369 4. Or, being upon the marches of France, a marquis. Mar- 
quis is derived -from majrh, and was originally the title of the guardian 
of the frontier, or march. 

369 13. Agreed with Sir Roger de Coverley that a good deal 
might be said on both sides. This expression is from the end of 
Spectator No. 122, where the Spectator, being asked by Sir Roger 
whether the redecorated tavern-sign is not still more like the Knight 
than the Saracen, replied, " that much might be said on both sides." 
It is likely, however, that De Quincey, who has evidently put the 
speech into the mouth of the wrong man, may have connected it in his 
mind with the discussion of witchcraft at the beginning of Spectator 
No. 117, where Addison balances the grounds for belief and unbelief 
somewhat as De Quincey does here. 

370 7. Bergereta. A very late Latin form of French bergerette, 
" a shepherdess." 

370 15. M. Simond, in his " Travels." The reference is to Journal 
of a Tour and Residence in Great Britain during the years 18 10 and 
1811, by Louis Simond, 2d ed., to which is added an appendix on 
France, written in December 18 15 and October 18 16. Edinburgh, 
1817. De Quincey refers to this story with horror several times, but 
such scenes are not yet wholly unknown. 

371 21. A Chevalier of St. Louis. The French order of St. Louis 
was founded by Louis XIV in 1693 for military service. After its dis- 
continuance at the Revolution, this order was reinstated in 1814 ; but 
no knights have been created since 1830. " Chevalier " is the lowest 
rank in such an order ;' it is here erroneously used by De Quincey as a 
title of address. 

371 23. "Chevalier, as-tu donn^," etc. "Chevalier, have you fed 
the hog ? " " Ma fiUe," etc., " My daughter, have you," etc. " Pucelle," 
etc., "Maid of Orleans, have you saved the lilies {i.e., France) ?" 

372 4. The Oriflamme of France. The red banner of St. Denis, 
preserved in the abbey of that name, near Paris, and borne before the 
French king as a consecrated flag. 



498 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

Vll 22. Twenty years after, talking with Southey. In 181 6 
De Quincey was a resident of Grasmere; Southey lived for many years 
at Keswick, a few miles away; they met first in 1807. For De Quincey's 
estimate of Southey's Joan of Arc, see Works, Riverside Ed., Vol. VI, 
pp. 262-266 ; Masson's Ed., Vol. V, pp. 238-242. 

372 28. Chinon is a little town near Tours. 

373 .3. She " pricks " for sheriffs. The old custom was to prick with 
a pin the names of those chosen by the sovereign for sheriffs. 

374 9. Ampulla. The flask containing the sacred oil used at 
coronations. 

374 10. The English boy. Henry VI was nine months old when 
he was proclaimed King of England and France in 1422, Charles VI 
of France and Henry V, his legal heir, having both died in that year. 
Henry's mother was the eldest daughter of Charles VI. 

374 13. Drawn from the ovens of Rheims. Rheims, where the 
kings of France were crowned, was famous for its biscuits and ginger- 
bread. 

374 26. Tindal's " Christianity as old as the Creation." Matthew 
Tindal (1657-1732) published this work in 1732; its greatest interest 
lies in the fact that to this book more than to any other Butler's 
Analogy was a reply. Tindal's argument was that natural religion, as 
taught by the deists, was complete ; that no revelation was necessary. 
A life according to nature is all that the best religion can teach. Such 
doctrine as this Joan preached in the speech ascribed to her. 

374 27. A parte ante. " From the part gone before " ; Joan's 
speech being three centuries earlier than the book from which it was 
taken. 

375 9. That divine passage in ''Paradise Regained." From Book I, 
lines 196-205. 

376 34. Patay is near Orleans ; Troyes was the capital of the old 
province of Champagne. 

378 25. "Nolebat," etc. "She would not use her sword or kill any 
one." 

379 24. Made prisoner by the Burgundians. The English have 
accused the French officers of conniving at Joan's capture through 
jealousy of her successes. Compiegne is 50 miles northeast of Paris. 

379 27. Bishop of Beauvais. Beauvais is 43 miles northwest of 
Paris, in Normandy. This bishop, Pierre Cauchon, rector of the Uni- 
versity at Paris, was devoted to the English party. 

379 30. " Bishop that art," etc. Cf. Shakspere's Macbeth, Act i, 
sc. 5, line 13. 



NOTES 



499 



379 ?.?,. A triple crown. The papacy is meant, of course. Tlie 
pope's tiara is a tall cap of golden cloth, encircled by three coronets. 

380 17. Judges examining the prisoner. The judge in France 
questions a prisoner minutely when he is first taken, before he is 
remanded for trial. De Quincey displays here his inveterate prejudice 
against the French ; but this practice is widely regarded as the vital 
error of French criminal procedure. 

381 5. A wretched Dominican. A member of the order of mendi- 
cant friars established in France by Domingo de Guzman in 1216. 
Their official name was Fratres Fredicatores, " Preaching Friars," and 
their chief objects were preaching and instruction. Their influence 
was very great, until the rise of the Jesuit order in the sixteenth century. 
The Dominicans Le Maitre and Graverent (the Grand Inquisitor) both 
took part in the prosecution. 

381 31. For a less cause than martyrdom. Cf. Genesis, ii, 24. 

383 14. From the four winds. There may be a reminiscence here 
of Ezekiel, xxxvii, i-io, especially verse 9 : " Come from the four winds, 
O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live." 

383 30. Luxor. See note 214 27. 

384 15. Daughter of Caesars. She was the daughter of the German 
emperor, Francis I, whose sovereignty, as the name " Holy Roman 
Empire " shows, was supposed to continue that of the ancient Roman 
emperors. 

384 17. Charlotte Corday (1768-93) murdered the revolutionist 
Marat in the belief that the good of France required it ; two days later 
she paid the penalty, as she had expected, with her life. 

385 18. Grafton, a chronicler. Richard Grafton died about 1572. 
He was printer to Edward VI. His chronicle was published in 1569. 

385 20. " Foule face." Fonle formerly meant " ugly." 

385 21. Holinshead. Raphael Holinshed died about 1580. His 
great work, Chronicles of England, Scotland, and Ireland, was used by 
Shakspere as the source of several plays. He writes of Joan : " Of 
favor [appearance] was she counted likesome ; of person stronglie 
made, and manlie ; of courage, great, hardie, and stout withall." 

386, footnote. Satanic. This epithet was applied to the work of 
some of his contemporaries by Southey in the preface to his Vision of 
fjidgement, 1821. It has been generally assumed that Byron and Shelley 
are meant. See Introduction to Byron's Vision of ftidgment in the new 
Murray Edition of Byron, Vol. IV. 

388, footnote. Burgoo. A thick oatmeal gruel or porridge used 
by seamen. According to the Murray Dictionary the derivation is 



500 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y 

unknown; but in the Athenatitn, Oct 6, iS8S, quoted by Hart, the word 
is explained as a corruption of Arabic burghuL 

393 30. English Prince, Regent of France. John, Duke of Bedford, 
uncle of Henry VI. " In genius for war as in political capacity," says 
J. R. Green, " John was hardly inferior to Henry [the Fifth, his 
brother] himself." — A History of the English People, Book IV, 
Chap. VI. 

393 31. My Lord of Winchester. Henry Beaufort, Bishop of Win- 
chester, half-brother of Henry IV. He was the most prominent Eng- 
lish prelate of his time and was the only Englishman in the Court that 
condemned Joan. As to the story of his death, to which De Quincey 
alludes, see Shakspere, 2 Henry VI, Act iii, sc. 3. Beaufort became 
cardinal in 1426. 

394 17. Who is this that cometh from Domr^my? This is an 
evident imitation of the famous passage from Isaiah, Ixiii, i : " Who is 
this that cometh from Edom, with dyed garments from Bozrah ? " 
•' Bloody coronation robes " is rather obscure, but probably refers to the 
fact that Joan had shed her own blood to bring about the coronation of 
her sovereign ; she is supposed to have appeared in armor at the actual 
coronation ceremony, and this armor might with reason be imagined as 
"bloody." 

394 22. She . . . shall take my lord's brief. That is, she shall act 
as the bishop's counsel. In the case of Beauvais, as in that of Win- 
chester, it must be remembered that in all monarchical countries the 
bishops are "lords spiritual," on an equality with the greater secular 
nobles, the " lords temporal." 



ON THE KNOCKING AT THE GATE IN "MACBETH" 

This piece appeared originally in the London Magazine for October, 
1823, as a part of the series called Notes from the Pocket-Book of a Late 
Opiicm- Eater. In the Collective Edition it was reserved for the last 
volume, which appeared after De Quincey's death. Consequently it 
remains unaltered, though De Quincey had expressed an intention of 
enlarging it. It is found in Works, Masson's Ed., Vol. X, pp. 389-394 ; 
Riverside Ed., Vol. IV, pp. 533-539. 

395 3. The knocking at the gate, etc. See Macbeth, Act ii, 
scs. 2, 3. Coleridge in his Shakespeare Notes (Works, Vol. IV, p. 172) 
marked scene 3, with the exception of one sentence, as an interpolation ; 
and De Quincey's explanation of the meaning of the Knocking is an 



NO TES 



501 



important part of the defence of the scene by Hales {cf. The Porter in 
Macbeth, New Shakspere Society, 1874; or Essays and Notes on Shakes- 
peare) and others. For a convenient summary of the argument, see 
Macbeth, Arden Ed., Appendix F. 

396 28. In 1812, Mr. Williams made his d6but. It was in Decem- 
ber, 181 1. {Cf. note 345 8.) The comments following can best be 
understood as a foreshadowing of the Murder as ofie of the Fine Arts 
papers. They furnish a striking testimony to the early origin of 
De Quincey's interest in murder mysteries. Cf note 340 2. 

397 27. *' The poor beetle that we tread on." From Shakspere, 
Measure for Measure, Act iii, sc. i, line 78 : 

" The sense of death is most in apprehension ; 
And the poor beetle, that we tread upon, 
In corporal sufferance finds a pang as great 
As when a giant dies." 

398 4. " With its petrific mace." Cf Milton, Paradise Lost, 
Book X, lines 293-296 : 

" The aggregated soil 
Death with his mace petrific, cold and dry, 
As with a trident smote, and fix't as firm 
As Delos floating once.'' 

398 14. His feelings caught chiefly by contagion from her. This 
view is by no means universal. Cf Corson's Introduction to Shake- 
speare, pp. 244-251. 

398 19. " The gracious Duncan." Macbeth, Act iii, sc. i, line 65. 

398 20. " The deep damnation," etc. Macbeth, Act i, sc. 7, line 20. 

399 30. Lady Macbeth is " unsexed." Cf Macbeth, Act i, sc. 5, 
lines 38-41. 

Additional Note 

The following readings in this volume are not found in either of the 
standard editions : 

46 4. Seldom or never ; both editions, seldom or ever. 
63 12. But otherwise; both editions, or otherwise. 

266 11. But that mighty system; both editions, but by that mighty 
system. 

267 2. This word ; both editions, this world. 

360 27. Pucelle d'Orleans herself; both editions, PucelU d' Orleans 
for herself 



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